Here’s a link to the June 21 Guardian (support it if you can!) coronavirus world liveblog.
From there:
Russia records 17,378 new Covid cases and 440 deaths
Reuters bring the latest numbers from Russia: 17,378 new Covid cases were reported for Monday, and the government coronavirus task force said 440 people had died of coronavirus-linked causes in the previous 24 hours.
80% of athletes and officials in Olympic village will be vaccinated – IOC president
There’s a quick quote here dropped on the wires from the International Olympic Committee president, Thomas Bach. He has told reporters…that well above 80% of the athletes and officials residing in the Olympic village will be vaccinated by the time the Games start on 23 July.
From their morning summary:
Olympic organizers have announced that they will allow domestic spectators at this summer’s Tokyo Games. However, attendance is capped at 10,000 people or 50% of a venue’s capacity, whichever is smaller.
…
Myanmar has reported what is believed to be its highest daily increase in Covid cases since the February coup, as concerns grow over the country’s collapsed health system and the junta’s continued crackdown on medics.
French nightclubs will be allowed to reopen from 9 July onwards, allowing the industry to operate again for the first time since it was shut during the France’s Covid lockdown in March 2020.
UK health secretary Matt Hancock has confirmed the government is working on a booster jab programme and should have clinical data in the next few weeks.
Chris Hopson, the chief executive of NHS Providers in England, has said that hospital admissions are “slowly rising” but are nothing like the rates seen during previous waves.
…
Changes in India’s vaccination programme come into effect today, with every adult now eligible for a free vaccine paid for by the federal government. This ends a complex system of buying and distributing vaccines that overburdened states and created inequities in who got the shots.
Shortages of Pfizer vaccines are expected to slow Australia’s rollout through June and July.
…
The major manufacturing hub of Dongguan in China’s most populous province of Guangdong has launched mass testing today for Covid and cordoned off communities after detecting its first infections in the current outbreak.
As India opened up free vaccinations to all adults today, as prime minister Narendra Modi kicked off a muted International Yoga Day hailing the practice’s “protective” properties against the virus.
In an early-morning address to the nation, Modi said that the practice had again proved itself to be a source of “inner strength”.
“When I speak to frontline warriors, they tell me that they have adopted yoga as a protective shield in their fight against coronavirus. Doctors have strengthened themselves with yoga and also used yoga to treat their patients,” he said.
Public parks were re-opened in Delhi today, but the number of events for Yoga Day was cut back around the country for the second year running because of the pandemic.
Yoga Day – proposed by Modi and adopted by the United Nations in 2014 – is observed mostly in India, but also worldwide on the Northern Hemisphere’s longest day.
AFP reports that throughout the pandemic, India’s government has touted yoga and herbal medicines – sales of which have boomed – to protect and give relief to people infected with the virus, despite scant high-quality evidence.
This chapter evaluates neoliberal spirituality in India and its relationship to public space and dominant political values by evaluating prime minister of India Narendra Modi’s 2015 inauguration of the International Day of Yoga with a vast public ritual. Drawing on Steven Lukes’s suggestion that political rituals manipulate an agenda in order to make it appear that community power is at play when in fact they empower a select few, the author argues that Modi’s Yoga Day demonstration demarcated out-groups and empowered a heteropatriarchal Hindu elite. Yoga was an instrument of domination through which Modi mainstreamed Hindutva, the position that the strength and unity of India depend on its “Hindu-ness,” and that therefore unorthodox or foreign social practices and religions should be resisted.
Claiming it as a protection against or treatment for COVID adds another unconscionable layer.
There is barely a person in Brazil today who hasn’t lost a loved one to Covid-19, say local scientists, as the country reached the grim milestone of half a million deaths.
The South American nation, which holds half the continent’s population, is being decimated by the virus. On June 18 alone Brazil accounted for nearly one-third of all Covid-19 deaths worldwide, according to Our World in Data — a figure that experts warn is quickly rising as the virus spreads unchecked throughout the country.
The 500,000 death toll is twice as high as it was six months ago, a sign that the mortality rate is accelerating, say experts.
“In June of last year, we reached 50,000 deaths for Covid-19. In just one year we have multiplied this number 10 times. It’s very scary,” says Brazilian neuroscientist Miguel Nicolelis, who in January predicted that the country would reach 500,000 deaths in July. “At the time, people thought that the number was exaggerated,” he recalls.
The country has suffered from a slow vaccine rollout and staunch resistance to containment measures by the government of President Jair Bolsonaro, who has downplayed the gravity of the virus.
With no lockdown and just 11.4% of the population fully vaccinated, the country is considered a “barn of new variants” and is increasingly isolated from the rest of the world. To date, more than 100 countries are restricting the entry of Brazilians, according to the foreign relations ministry.
Pressure on the federal government is mounting: Anti-Bolsonaro rallies were held on Saturday across the country — in Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Brasilia, Salvador and Recife — and even those who were quarantining went out on the streets [!].
Software developer Mariana Oliveira is one of them. She says she’s decided to protest and take the risk of being infected because “the government is a worse threat than the virus.”…
GlaxoSmithKline and Vir Biotechnology have said final results from a late-stage study of their monoclonal antibody confirmed it significantly reduced hospitalisation and death among high-risk Covid-19 patients when given early in the disease.
The treatment, sotrovimab, received an emergency use authorisation from the US Food and Drug Administration in May, while the EU’s drug regulator has also backed it.
Reuters reports that the drugmakers also said today the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has recommended sotrovimab to treat high-risk, non-hospitalised patients with mild-to-moderate Covid-19.
The treatment appeared to “retain activity” against current variants of concern and interest, the agency said in its updated guidelines. In a study of 1,057 patients, sotrovimab resulted in a 79% reduction in risk of hospitalization for more than 24 hours or death due to any cause, the companies said.
After a heavily armed Belgian soldier went missing threatening to kill a high-profile virologist, Belgium’s justice minister has appealed to the public to ignore conspiracy theories after he was discovered yesterday a month after he went missing.
Before he disappeared, Conings left letters for his wife and the police in which he made threats to kill Marc Van Ranst, Belgium’s best-known virologist and an adviser to the government on its tough Covid restrictions.
Conings, believed to have shot himself, was found by the mayor of the nearby town of Maaseik on Sunday morning a few hundred metres from an area searched by soldiers in recent days.
Earlier this year, the Brussels Times reported that excerpts of a video of a speech shared online made it seem as if Van Ranst was explaining how to use a pandemic for personal gain. But he said he had sought to calm the population with clear explanations.
For nearly three weeks Belgium’s leading virologist has been living in a safehouse with his wife and 12-year-old son, guarded by security agents.
While scientists across the world have come under attack throughout the pandemic, the threat to Prof Marc Van Ranst is more serious than most.
He has been targeted by a far-right rogue soldier, Jürgen Conings, who has a vendetta for virologists and Covid lockdowns. The military shooting instructor went on the run with rocket launcher and a machine gun, and Belgian police cannot find him….
Putin: Covid in Russia has ‘got worse’ in many regions
Russian president Vladimir Putin has warned that the coronavirus situation in some Russian regions is getting worse as authorities began promoting the idea of revaccination in an effort to stem new cases.
New cases have been rising, particularly in Moscow, which on Saturday registered a record 9,120 daily cases. The Kremlin has blamed the increase on people’s reluctance to have vaccinations and “nihilism”.
“Unfortunately, the coronavirus threat has not receded,” Putin told the lower house of parliament on Monday. “In many regions the situation has even got worse.”
Video footage emerged on social media on Sunday, purportedly showing people sick with Covid-19 laying prone on the floor of a hospital corridor in St Petersburg, Putin’s home city which is hosting some matches in the Euro 2020 soccer championship, Reuters reports. Local authorities are investigating the video to check its veracity.
The authorities are trying to coax and compel people to get vaccinated, offering those who do the chance to win new cars and flats, while threatening others with loss of earnings and dismissal.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters today that revaccinations were the way forward. “Revaccination will be and is inevitable – not just vaccination, but revaccination – for those who want to keep themselves, their relatives and loved ones safe,” said Peskov, according to Reuters.
A unanimous Supreme Court said on Monday that student athletes could receive education-related payments, in a case that could reshape college sports by allowing more money from a billion-dollar industry to go to the players.
Justice Neil Gorsuch delivered the opinion of the court.
College sports raise billions of dollars from ticket sales, television contracts and merchandise, and supporters of the students say the players are being exploited and barred from the opportunity to monetize their talents. In 2016, for example, the NCAA negotiated an eight-year extension of its broadcasting rights to March Madness, worth $1.1 billion annually.
In a concurring opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said the NCAA is essentially acting “above the law” in how it treats athletes.
“Nowhere else in America can businesses get away with agreeing not to pay their workers a fair market rate on the theory that their product is defined by not paying their workers a fair market rate,” Kavanaugh wrote. “And under ordinary principles of antitrust law, it is not evident why college sports should be any different. The NCAA is not above the law.”…
“The decision will mean that schools can compensate athletes not just with scholarships to pay for the cost of attendance (that’s already allowed), but can also pay for things like computers, musical instruments, graduate programs, and other education-related costs. Schools will also be allowed to pay for student-athletes study abroad programs, offer other scholarships, and fund internships after they’ve finished playing for the school.” — Buzzfeed News
“The decision doesn’t mean that NCAA athletes will start drawing salaries for playing, nor will it affect the ongoing battle over whether players can profit off of their own names or likenesses. But it will mean that schools can do a lot more to attract and compensate students who play NCAA Division One basketball and football. Though the decision is narrow, it’s a significant step for advocates who have pushed to compensate NCAA student-athletes.” — Buzzfeed News
The actual number of people processed under normal immigration law (and not rapidly expelled back to Mexico) under Biden in 2021 never even hit half the number of people as in 2019….”
Trump is supposedly banned from Facebook but through the “Team Trump” account is currently running ads for fundraising and promoting his upcoming rallies…
I’ve asked Facebook whether these ads are permitted in light of Trump’s ban.
It appears to me that they are using the TeamTrump account to evade the ban.
Western countries have extended sanctions against Belarus, with a pledge to make Alexander Lukashenko’s regime “run dry”, following last month’s forced landing of a Ryanair flight to arrest a dissident.
In a coordinated move against Lukashenko, the UK, US, EU and Canada announced travel bans and asset freezes on senior Belarusian officials and entities that bankroll the regime as a punishment for the arrest of the activist and journalist Raman Pratasevich and his girlfriend, Sofia Sapega, who were detained after being hauled off a flight from Athens to Vilnius.
EU foreign ministers agreed to add 86 people and entities to the bloc’s sanctions list while the UK announced it was imposing sanctions on seven individuals and one entity linked to the illegal forced landing of the Ryanair flight, as well as four people and one entity implicated in human rights abuses.
The US Treasury Department said it was freezing any US assets and barring any transactions with 16 individuals and five entities including Lukashenko’s press secretary, Natallia Mikalaeuna Eismant.
Going one step further, EU ministers also endorsed a plan for sanctions targeting the Belarusian economy, in an attempt to intensify pressure on Lukashenko’s regime.
“We will no longer only sanction individuals but also areas of the economy which are important to the regime. We want to make Lukashenko’s regime run dry financially,” said Germany’s foreign minister, Heiko Maas, in a statement on the German foreign ministry’s Twitter account.
“Sanctions are a way of putting pressure on the government of Belarus and these are going to hurt. These are going to hurt the economy of Belarus heavily,” the EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, told reporters.
Borrell said economic sanctions “will be approved after consideration of the European Council” of EU leaders, who meet for a two-day summit on Thursday.
Officials are working on sanctions to hit Belarus’s export industries, including oil, tobacco and potash, a salt used in fertiliser, which is a big source of foreign currency for Belarus. In a bid to further choke off funding to Lukashenko’s regime, EU banks will also be banned from offering loans or investment services.
…
The EU and UK have banned their airlines flying over Belarus, since the arrest of Pratasevich. The Belarusian opposition is worried for the dissident’s safety after a series of appearances on state TV and at press conferences, where he has praised Lukashenko.
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the opposition leader, has said it was evident Pratasevich was speaking under pressure. She said: “He’s been taken hostage in an act of state terrorism.”
Meeting EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg on Monday morning, Tsikhanouskaya brought a bullet she said had been extracted from the lung of a young activist hurt during the crackdown on peaceful protesters last August. “I wanted to show ministers what risks activists [and] journalists face on a daily basis in Belarus,” she wrote on Twitter.
[…] The bill also directs authorities to establish central polling places where “all voters in its jurisdiction are allowed to vote on election day … regardless of the precinct in which they are registered,” according to its text.
he measure also allows sheriffs to establish temporary polling locations at county jails. These sites would be available to people who live in the county and are in custody, but have not been convicted of the offense for which they are detained.
Pritzker’s office said that the practice is already in place in Cook County.
The legislation also establishes June 28, 2022, as the new date of the state’s primary election.
[…] Pritzker said on Twitter “with attacks on voting rights on the rise in states across the nation, Illinois is proud to stand up for a strong, secure and accessible democracy.”
“The legislation I’m signing today further expands access to the ballot box — ensuring all Illinoisans’ voices are heard.” […]
(I’m slightly more optimistic than he is due to the inherent dilemma for the conservatives that he discusses: once they set the precedent that religiously guided actions are exempt from secular laws, there’s no confining it to (their preferred forms of) Christianity.)
To hear Kyrsten Sinema tell it, leaving filibuster rules alone is what’s “best for our democracy.” That’s a difficult pitch to take seriously.
It is no secret that Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) is one of the shrinking number of Senate Democrats fiercely opposed to reforming the institution’s filibuster rules. It’s also no secret that the Arizonan is under considerable pressure to reconsider, especially with filibuster abuses standing in the way of voting-rights legislation.
[…] Sinema continues to make the case that she’s right and those pressuring her from the left are wrong. The trouble is, her case just isn’t very good.
[Sinema said] members should simply “change their behavior.” And if Republicans’ “behavior” doesn’t change? Well, then the legislative process will remain sclerotic, Americans seeking policy solutions will go without, and abuses in the Senate will continue indefinitely.
[…] When this taking point didn’t prove persuasive, Sinema also said that the filibuster “was created as a tool to bring together members of different parties to find compromise.” Senators are certainly entitled to their own opinions, but they’re not entitled to just make up historical details that don’t exist — and the Arizonan’s argument about how the filibuster was created was just spectacularly and demonstrably untrue.
Now, the Senate Democrat is trying a slightly different tack:
Sinema’s office told NBC News her support for the filibuster is “not based on the importance of any particular policy,” but rather “based on what is best for our democracy, including the fact that the filibuster helps protect the country from wild swings back and forth between opposing policy poles.”
Let’s take those one at a time.
First, there’s no reason to assume a majority-rule Senate will necessarily produce wild policy swings. Not only is this at odds with what history shows us — remember, filibuster abuses are a fairly modern phenomenon […]
Besides, the power should remain in voters’ hands. If they elect policymakers who go too far with “wild” policy swings, voters in the next election cycle can elect new officials to do the opposite.
Second, there’s Sinema’s suggestion that mandatory super-majorities for nearly all legislation is what’s “best for our democracy.”
Perhaps “democracy” wasn’t the best choice of words in this pitch.
Americans can elect one party to lead the White House, the Senate, and the House, with polls showing robust public support for that party’s legislative agenda. But thanks to filibuster abuses, that party won’t be able to pursue its own governing vision unless some members of the Senate minority agree to let them.
Jon Chait added this morning that in the current Senate, “New laws require 60 votes, but existing programs can be defunded with 51. Judges, who can be appointed with a mere 51 votes, can strike down laws that required 60 to pass.”
[…] Suggesting that democracy, of all things, benefits from ongoing procedural abuses that makes legislating so difficult is a mistake.
What if progressive cities and counties in red states wanted to do Medicaid expansion on their own? A new bill would let them do exactly that.
For most of the country, it was obvious years ago that Medicaid expansion through the Affordable Care Act is a good deal, but as regular readers know, there are still 12 holdouts. As a consequence, there are millions of low-income Americans who don’t have health security, simply because Republicans in their respective states refuse to do the right thing.
In the Democrats’ COVID relief package, called the American Relief Plan, President Joe Biden thought he’d come up with an offer that states couldn’t refuse. As we discussed in March, the policy may sound a little complicated, but the offer was straightforward: under the ACA, the federal government already covers 90% of the costs of expanding Medicaid. As Vox explained, the Democrats’ relief package ups the ante: “[N]ewly expanding states would also receive a 5 percent bump in the federal funding match for their traditional Medicaid programs for two years. Because the traditional Medicaid population is significantly larger than the expansion population, the funding bump is projected to cover a state’s 10 percent match for expansion enrollees and then some over those two years.”
[…] Three months later, how many states did the obvious thing? None. Literally, not one of the 12 holdouts has budged.
[…] If Republicans in these dozen states won’t accept the arithmetic, and aren’t even prepared to accept new federal resources, maybe there’s a way to go around them? The Washington Post highlighted a new proposal from Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Tex.), who’s introduced a bill to empower cities and counties to bypass their state governments.
The bill would create, for the first time, a local pathway for expanding the health insurance program for the low-income…. Cities, counties or even hospital districts could get special permission from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to expand Medicaid within their own jurisdiction. The permission, granted through what are known as “demonstration projects,” would last for five years, with an option to extend for an additional five years. It would provide the same federal assistance provided to states; localities would have all of their expansion costs covered for the first three years, with the federal subsidies phased down to 90 percent of costs by the seventh year.
The bill is called the “Cover Outstanding Vulnerable Expansion-eligible Residents” (COVER) Now Act,” and it was introduced late last week. As of this morning, Doggett’s proposal has picked up 42 co-sponsors — including House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.).
San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg told Texas Public Radio last week, “The physical, mental and fiscal wellbeing of our community is inextricably linked to everyone’s ability to get covered. Medicaid expansion is an issue that’s supported across the political spectrum, and I’m eager to see the results of the congressman’s bill.” […]
There’s a select group of officials who were targeted by Team Trump, but whose careers are back on track in the Biden era. That group is growing.
Among Donald Trump’s many jarring scandals last year was the aggressive campaign against inspectors general throughout the executive branch. Last spring, a total of five independent watchdogs were targeted by the then-president — usually in late-Friday-night purges — as part of an ugly pattern.
[…] A year later, one member of the quintet is making a comeback thanks to the former president’s successor.
President Biden nominated Health and Human Services (HHS) official Christi Grimm on Friday to become the department’s permanent inspector general. Grimm, who has been serving as acting HHS inspector general since early 2020, was tapped to fill the role on a permanent basis after being targeted by former President Trump last year.
[…] In early April 2020, as the scope of the pandemic was intensifying, the inspector general’s office for the Department of Health and Human Services issued a rather brutal report, pointing to U.S. hospitals facing dire shortages of vital medical supplies. The document was based on extensive interviews with medical facilities nationwide.
The appropriate White House response would’ve been to read the report, digest its findings, and take steps to put things right. In fact, that would be in keeping with the reason the government came up with inspectors general in the first place: they do independent reviews, identify problems, and offer policymakers an opportunity to address them.
For his part, Trump leaped into action — by targeting the official who identified the problem. Late on a Friday night in early May 2020, the then-president moved to replace Grimm, condemning her as an Obama partisan, despite the fact that she’d worked in the IG’s office for decades — including eight years in the Bush/Cheney administration.
Trump also dismissed the HHS report on hospital supply shortages as “Another Fake Dossier!” which makes as little sense now as it did at the time.
A year later, the Biden White House is putting things right, nominating Grimm for the position […]
What’s more, she’s not the only one. In March, a year after Team Trump punished Lt. Col. Yevgeny Vindman because the then-president was mad at his brother, the Biden White House approved him for an overdue promotion.
Trump also targeted Janet Yellen and ousted her from the Federal Reserve, before Biden tapped her to serve as secretary of the Treasury. Last year, Dr. Rick Bright was allegedly ousted as head of a biodefense agency and sidelined at the National Institutes of Health after becoming a government whistleblower, only to become a Biden adviser months later during the presidential transition process.
And then, of course, there’s Dr. Anthony Fauci, whom Trump sidelined […], before Biden promoted him to serve as, among other things, the chief medical advisor to the president.
Rubio suggested Biden did the same thing Trump was impeached over in 2019. The argument is plainly ridiculous.
At first blush, this Politico report from late last week has a familiar feel to it.
The Biden White House has temporarily halted a military aid package to Ukraine that would include lethal weapons, a plan originally made in response to aggressive Russian troop movements along Ukraine’s border this spring. The aid package would be worth up to $100 million, according to four people familiar with internal deliberations.
As the reporting explained, the aid package was crafted in response to a Russian military buildup, but ahead of last week’s summit between President Joe Biden and President Vladimir Putin, Moscow announced plans to draw down troop level near the Ukrainian border.
Should the circumstances warrant it, the military aid could still be dispatched to our allies in Kiev. What’s more, this is just part of a larger picture: as White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki explained in a written statement, “The idea that we have held back security assistance to Ukraine is nonsense. Just last week — in the run-up to the U.S.-Russia Summit — we provided a $150 million package of security assistance, including lethal assistance.”
This hardly seems like the stuff of a political controversy, though Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) turned to social media to push a curious line: “Remember when freezing military aid to Ukraine was an impeachable offense?”
[…] Donald Trump also froze military aid to Ukraine, not in response to Russian troop deployments, but as part of a corrupt extortion scheme: the Republican hatched a plan to leverage U.S. assistance in the hopes that Ukrainian officials would help Trump cheat in the 2020 presidential election.
[…] Whether Rubio intended to do this or not, he highlighted a critical difference between the two presidents: the Biden and Trump administrations superficially took similar steps, but only one of them engaged in brazen corruption.
It was, incidentally, corruption Rubio was quick to shrug off: the Florida senator, like nearly every other congressional Republican, voted against holding Trump accountable for his venality.
[…] Maybe he’s genuinely confused and published this tweet because he doesn’t understand the relevant details.
Or perhaps Rubio knows how foolish the comparison is, but hopes some of the Republican base will be fooled into thinking there’s a controversy where none exists.
Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) yesterday called for the removal of three of his colleagues — Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Paul Gosar (R-AZ) — from Congress over their promotion of the far-right’s latest wild conspiracy theory surrounding the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Moulton told CNN Sunday the trio were “traitors” who are attempting to “whitewash history” by hyping the theory, which makes the case that the FBI was actually the entity responsible for the Jan. 6 attack.
“They are domestic terrorists, the people who attacked us in the Capitol, who attacked the seat of government all with the intention of undermining the election, undermining the will of the American people,” he said. “And frankly, if you’re aiding and abetting terrorists by your actions in the Capitol, whether it was back on Jan. 6 or with your votes today, you don’t deserve to be a member of Congress.”
[…] The conspiracy theory was first elevated last week, when Revolver News — a right-wing website that regularly publishes anti-Biden pieces and fearmongering about the COVID-19 vaccine — first published a piece on it. Fox News’ Tucker Carlson then seized on the Revolver piece.
[…] As CNN’s Marshall Cohen recently observed, the conspiracy theory relies on a “deeply flawed misunderstanding of how legal writing works and the definition of an unindicted co-conspirator.”
And yet, the right-wing media is a machine that thrives on speculation and has little use for facts. Carlson gave the conspiracy theory the Fox News prime time treatment, […]n (Gaetz, Greene and Gosar) scooped it up as fact, the usual hysteria ensued. […]
By Tuesday, Gosar used a House Oversight Committee hearing to enter the Revolver News conspiracy theory into the congressional record.
[…] And while Moulton was one of the first Democrats to acknowledge the absurdity of the latest attempt to place insurrection blame on any entity besides Trump supporters, his call for an ouster will likely go nowhere, as have attempts so far to hold the three accountable for the key role they played in fueling the lie that led to the attack.
[…] Trump offered a horrifying solution to the burgeoning COVID-19 infections among American tourists returning to the country in February last year, according to the Washington Post.
“Don’t we have an island that we own? What about Guantanamo?” Trump reportedly asked during a meeting in the Situation Room.
[…] Trump reportedly made the suggestion a second time before his staffers shut down the idea due to concerns over political backlash.
The exchange is detailed in an upcoming book by Washington Post reporters Yasmeen Abutaleb and Damian Paletta titled “Nightmare Scenario: Inside the Trump Administration’s Response to the Pandemic That Changed History.”
The book also lays out the ex-president’s fits of rage over the idea of a federal COVID-19 testing program, which he reportedly feared would damage him politically as he sought to falsely downplay the severity of the virus.
“Testing is killing me! I’m going to lose the election because of testing!” Trump shouted at then-Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar during a call on March 18, according to Abutaleb and Paletta. “What idiot had the federal government do testing?”
Azar then reportedly reminded Trump that Jared Kushner, his own son-in-law who had taken over the White House’s testing efforts, was that idiot.
Trump also reportedly ranted during the call that it was “gross incompetence” to let the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention develop a COVID-19 test.
The former president hadn’t kept his grievances with testing quiet; he often publicly blamed testing for the exploding cases across the country rather than acknowledging his and his administration’s negligent response to the pandemic that caused the spike in the first place.
Trump should have gone to GITMO for treatment when he contracted covid-19 in October 2020.
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It’s almost as if Trump was brain-damaged, and had the basic reasoning skills of a mean-spirited three year old.
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“staff shut down the idea due to concerns over political backlash.”
Not because it was was cruel or unscientific or lacking in any decency or common sense.
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It makes sense, in Gitmo they had all the experience needed, they could just waterboard the patients with disinfectant and send UV up their tailpipes, and the guys would be cured in minutes
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And he knew that tests reveal things, like that you’re stupid. Hence the erasing of all his school records
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Another excerpt from WaPo:
Trump’s top deputies adopted a similar strategy of issuing threats or isolating their rivals, undermining efforts to manage the outbreak, Abutaleb and Paletta write.
Kadlec, who had overseen the purchase of 600 million masks, took the plan in late March to Kushner — who exploded in anger, throwing his pen against the wall in frustration when he learned the masks would not arrive until June.
“You f—ing moron,” Kushner reportedly said. “We’ll all be dead by June.”
Thanks, Jared. For nothing.
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The Trump-Kushner political strategy was apparently based on a three-pronged assessment of the pandemic — the last of which Kushner claimed had already begun by April 18. “That doesn’t mean there’s not still a lot of pain and there won’t be pain for a while,” he told Woodward, suggesting that it was time for the country to move onto the “comeback phase” out of concern for the economy, prioritizing Trump’s reelection prospects over the advice of public-health experts. “We’ve now put out rules to get back to work. Trump’s now back in charge. It’s not the doctors.” Kushner continued to describe the move in adversarial terms. “We have, like, a negotiated settlement.”
…The essence of Mladic’s project is known to the contemporary, Western far right as the “Great Replacement” theory: the idea that Muslims are waging demographic warfare against white, Christian Europeans, seeking to outbreed and replace them and their civilization. And defending “Western civilization,” as such, requires a confrontation with the “invaders.” Or as the Canadian reactionary Mark Steyn put it in a 2006 New York Times bestseller:
“In a democratic age, you can’t buck demography – except through civil war. The Serbs figured that out, as other Continentals will in the years ahead: If you cannot outbreed the enemy, cull ‘em. The problem that Europe faces is that Bosnia’s demographic profile is now the model for the entire continent.”
Though Mladic and his associates did not use the term Great Replacement (it was only coined by the French neo-fascist writer Renaud Camus in 2010), their paranoid, genocidal campaign against the Bosniak community in Bosnia (and later ethnic Albanians in Kosovo) and the accompanying narratives justifying these pogroms electrified far-right extremists in the West. In a sense, Mladic and his cohort were the true authors of the Great Replacement doctrine – and all its accompanying bloodletting.
Today, the Bosnian Genocide is a rhetorical and conceptual pillar of the Western far right, an example of the kinds of regimes and policies they embrace and aspire to replicate. In untangling the origins of this coupling, a still more disturbing reality emerges: Bosnia’s recent past – the dissolution of Yugoslavia, the ensuing war, and the accompanying genocide – is what many contemporaries on the Western radical right imagine, and aspire to reenact, in their own societies.
…
…Though both Karadzic and Milosevic routinely denied the systematic nature of their genocide, they never denied its necessity. Here they remained categorical: The Bosniaks, like the Kosovar Albanians, were an abscess that had to be removed from the body of Christian Europe. It was ugly going, to be sure, but they were the knights on the ramparts “guarding” the whole of the continent. In the fevered swamps of the Serbian tabloids, the language was even more explicit: Serbia was Byzantium restored, the cradle of Christian civilization, taking its glorious vengeance on the Turks, the Moors, and the whole of the Muslim world.
…
By the 2010s, Bosnian Genocide denial and the valorization of Serb nationalist war criminals became a staple of Western far-right discourses – a pillar of their ideological and political lexicon like the Confederacy, the Third Reich, or the African apartheid regimes. It soon started featuring in the manifestos of far-right terrorists.
Anders Breivik, the terrorist who executed the attacks in Norway in 2011, made nearly 1,000 mentions of the Yugoslav Wars in his meandering manifesto. Eric Frein, who orchestrated the 2014 attack on the Pennsylvania State Police barracks, frequently cosplayed in Serb nationalist uniforms. And Brenton Tarrant, sentenced to life imprisonment for the 2019 Christchurch mosque killings, covered his rifles and munitions in the names of Serb and Montenegrin historical figures and livestreamed himself playing a Serb nationalist ballad glorifying Karadzic’s genocide from the Bosnian War. And while the 2019 El Paso terrorist did not cite Serb nationalist motifs, his manifesto credits Tarrant and the Great Replacement as his primary inspirations, directing his ire at Latinos and Hispanics rather than Muslims.
In the sewers of the online far right, Serb nationalist themes are even more prominent. The song Tarrant played on his way to massacre the congregants in Christchurch is a well-known meme among extremists and gamers. The original is titled “Karadžiću, vodi Srbe svoje” (“Karadzic, lead your Serbs”) but it is known online primarily as the “Remove Kebab Song” or “Serbia Strong.” Among the far right, “kebab” is used as a derogatory term for Muslims, and Tarrant referred to himself as a “kebab removalist” in his manifesto. A cursory search for the song on platforms like YouTube reveals millions of views and hundreds of thousands of comments, most of them in English. Those willing to dive deeper into the underground forums and message boards of the far right will easily discover their intimate familiarity with the Bosnian Genocide and the deeds of Serb nationalist genocidaires.
As the Western far right gains political currency in Europe and the U.S., it is likely that their interest in the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo will become more pronounced. The turn toward paranoid identity politics and demographic fetishism among ostensibly center-right parties on both sides of the Atlantic readily comports to the ideological discourses developed by Serb nationalists during the 1980s and 1990s. Their current encounters with similar “traditionalist” and “patriotic” discourses emanating from Russia – and the Kremlin’s court intellectuals like Aleksandr Dugin or the late faux-dissident Eduard Limonov (a close associate of Karadzic) – will also serve to further disseminate Serb nationalist ideas, as Moscow is the primary international patron of the revisionist regimes in Belgrade and Bosnia’s Republika Srpska.
Following the sacking of the U.S. Capitol by an extremist mob on Jan. 6, 2021, the ascendancy of far-right movements in the established democracies has finally landed as, arguably, the central national security issue facing the West. Confronting the QAnon cult has required that researchers and law enforcement decode an obscurantist ideological and political lexicon; the same will be required in recognizing the extent to which Serb nationalist ideas have penetrated many of these same extremist circles.
…The ideas and discourses of the architects of the Bosnian Genocide have already taken root in the West, contributing to many deaths. Failure to recognize this runs the risk of letting Bosnia’s recent past shape our collective future.
I’m amused by this line: “the [14th-century] knight Milos Obilic, who in the oral tradition is said to have killed Murad I on the battlefield but may in reality be a mythic figure invented after the fact.”
The House is gearing up for votes this week to undo three Trump-era rules, using a special legislative tool to repeal some of the previous administration’s agency actions.
Democrats will draw on the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to take aim at rules governing methane regulations, lending practices and employment discrimination cases.
The three resolutions, which made it through the Senate on simple majority votes that included Republicans crossing the aisle on two of the measures, all have a good chance of clearing the House.
Sending the measures to President Biden’s desk would deal a blow to former President Trump’s legacy and mark the first time Congress has repealed his administration’s policies through the CRA, which allows lawmakers and a new president to get rid of rules established under a previous president if they were completed shortly before the change in administration.
“You have lots of different tools that you can use to shift regulatory policy. This tool comes with some interesting sort of expedited procedures,” said Daniel Pérez, a senior policy analyst at George Washington University’s Regulatory Studies Center.
The CRA is an all-or-nothing tool, he said, that lets you get rid of existing rules, but not revise them.
[…] The CRA was successfully used just once before 2017, but at the start of Trump’s presidency Republicans were able to eliminate more than a dozen Obama-era regulations since they controlled both the House and Senate.
And while some on the left may view this week’s vote as a kind of payback, there are other progressives who argue that Democrats should be pushing to eliminate the CRA, not give it legitimacy by using it against Trump. […]
By combining sheets of graphene with antibodies, they were able to detect changes in atomic vibrations when exposed to COVID positive samples.
[…] Graphene is a material made up of carbon atoms, usually a single layer of atoms in sheet or other formation. Researchers are interested in studying its characteristics and exploring its uses such as using it as a conductor in electrical systems. One group of researchers are investigating if it can be used to detect the SARS-CoV-2 virus in laboratory experiments.
In the experiments, the team put together sheets of graphene with an antibody that targets the spike protein on the novel coronavirus that causes COVID. “Graphene is just one atom thick, so a molecule on its surface is relatively enormous and can produce a specific change in its electronic energy,” says Vikas Berry, professor and head of chemical engineering at the UIC College of Engineering and senior author of the paper, in a press release. They then measure the atomic level vibrations when the sheets are exposed to COVID positive and COVID negative samples.
“In this experiment, we modified graphene with an antibody and, in essence, calibrated it to react only with the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein,” says Berry. “Using this method, graphene could similarly be used to detect COVID-19 variants.”
The experiments were a success and were published in ACS Nano. The researchers were able to detect a difference in the atomic vibrations between COVID positive and negative samples. The vibrations changed within five minutes when they were exposed to a COVID positive sample.
[…] “The modified sensor is highly sensitive and selective for COVID, and it is fast and inexpensive.”
President Vladimir Putin has pulled off a targeted propaganda operation against the U.S. that’s so simple it never should have worked—and he did it in plain sight as part of the build-up to last week’s summit with President Joe Biden.
This weekend, Russia’s favorite propaganda shows celebrated a job well done….
…
On June 16, with the world’s attention fixed to the Geneva summit, the Russian president reiterated the same flawed premise during his press conference: “About my opponents being jailed or imprisoned. People went into the U.S. Congress with political demands. Four hundred people now facing criminal charges… On what grounds? Not quite clear… One of the participants, a woman, was shot dead on the spot. She was not threatening anything.”
Putin’s plot paid off in spades when Tucker Carlson played the clip of his comments to NBC on his show and expressed agreement. Carlson said, “Now, under normal circumstances, we would never play tape of a foreign adversary criticizing our government. But honestly, those are fair questions.”
Without a hint of irony, Carlson added, “Vladimir Putin knows authoritarian systems very well, and he sees clearly what is happening in this country.” The Fox News host seemed to assume that an authoritarian adversary was providing this advice without an ulterior motive—and eagerly shared it with his American audience.
His decision was cheered by pro-Kremlin propagandists in Moscow.
During his nightly show, The Evening with Vladimir Soloviev, host Vladimir Soloviev proudly surmised, “Putin knew whom he was talking to and his message was heard. This is Fox News and its very popular program—one of its highest-rated programs. Republicans listened and couldn’t help but agree… Putin was heard and what he said hit the bullseye.”
Russian political scientist Sergey Mikheyev enthusiastically replied, “This is a good illustration of the thesis as to whether we should be influencing public opinion in America. Yes, of course we should—of course! The question is how to do it and which resources to use. Without a doubt, we should be using any existing divisions. Sometimes I hear, ‘What’s in it for us?’ and I will cynically tell you: whatever harms them benefits us. That is terrible but true.”
…
Carlson’s commentary also flagged another line being pursued by Russian state propagandists. The Fox News host asked, “Who did shoot Ashli Babbitt and why don’t we know?” Rossiya-1 probed that question, quoting Republican Congressman Devin Nunes in a state TV news show on June 11….
Wonkette: “Lindsey Graham Has Very Reasonable Bipartisan Plan To Prevent Democrats From Accomplishing Things”
It seems West Virginia’s […] Democratic Senator Joe Manchin is having a hard time cashing the bipartisan checks he’s been sacrificing progress for.
Enter political remora, GOP Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who appeared on “Fox News Sunday” to tell host Chris Wallace he is the bipartisan savior Democrats are looking for. [video is available at the link]
WALLACE: You’re a member of the so-called bipartisan Group of 21, which is 10 Democratic senators and 11 Republican senators, who’ve come up with a roughly $1 trillion package on infrastructure. […] How close are you to a deal with the White House? And what’s the effective deadline for reaching an agreement?
GRAHAM: I think the difference between this negotiation and the earlier negotiation is that we’re willing to add more new money to infrastructure in this package and I am hopeful if the White House and Joe Biden stay involved, we can get there. I would just say this: President Biden, if you want an infrastructure deal of a trillion dollars, it’s there for the taking. You just need to get involved and lead.
Really? Seems to good to be true because, like every Faustian bargain with the GOP, it is.
Wallace noted that the only way some progressive Democrats will go with this so-called bipartisan plan would be if they can continue working on a separate, bigger infrastructure bill they could pass through reconciliation. Then Wallace asked Graham if he’d still support the infrastructure compromise while understanding Democrats may yet pass another bill.
Graham’s answer revealed his true intentions:
GRAHAM: That could be very problematic. […] I don’t want to raise taxes to pay for it. But the gas tax hasn’t been adjusted for inflation, the federal gas tax, since the 1990s. I would be willing to do that. An infrastructure bank is on the table, using unspent COVID money. So I would just say to President Biden, you’ve got a party that’s divided. You’ve got a Republican Party that’s willing to meet you in the middle […] You’ve got to decide what kind of president you are and what kind of presidency you want. So, if you want to work with Republicans to spend a trillion dollars of — on infrastructure, it’s available to you. If you don’t want to go that route and you pick a $6 trillion reconciliation package, I think you’ll get a lot of pushback from every Republican. […] That would be a problem for me. […] What they’re calling infrastructure, the liberal left, to me, is not remotely related to what’s traditionally been called infrastructure. It’s just — it’s just a power grab by the Democratic Party in every area of our lives.
Graham is hoping President Biden takes this deal so the actual transformative bill can be killed at the altar of bipartisanship. Graham also doesn’t want to raise taxes on the rich or corporations, which is why he mentions taking money already appropriated for COVID and suggests adjusting the gas tax for inflation, which would be a tax hike for average Americans instead. […]
Wallace moved on to an upcoming vote on a voting rights bill, including provisions Senator Manchin has said he supports. Wallace asked Graham if he could go with a stripped version of the For the People Act. Graham had complaints:
GRAHAM: But we had the largest turnout in the history of the United States and states are in charge of voting in America.
Yeah, we know, which is why Republicans are trying to rig it in the states so they can win permanently. Graham unironically said Democrats are “trying to fix a problem” he pretends doesn’t exist (voter suppression) as more GOP state legislatures pass restrictive voting bills.
Wallace pointed out the obvious downside if Republicans vote down Manchin’s watered down voting bill.
WALLACE: [I]f Republicans vote, as it appears you’re going to, to kill the Manchin version of voting rights, you’ve already, Republicans voted to kill the bipartisan January 6th commission looking into the insurrection of the Capitol, do you run the risk that Manchin and a couple of other moderate senators will eventually say, look, bipartisanship isn’t working and, you know what, we’re not going to kill the filibuster but we’re going to reduce the number of votes you need to stop a debate from 60 to 55? Do you run that risk?
Graham responded:
GRAHAM: I hope not […] When we had the House and the Senate and the White House, […], I had a bunch of Democrats wanting to sign a letter with me protecting the filibuster. Every one of those Democrats have fled for the hills. So I was beat on every day. Why don’t you give in and agree with President Trump to change the rules so we can get the Trump agenda through? I said, no, I don’t think it would be good for the country. […] I said no because it’s bad for the Senate. I hope these Democrats understand it’s bad for the Senate to change the rules.
[Hypocrite!]
Graham was surprisingly compliant when McConnell changed the rules to help Trump cram through his Supreme Court justices, so spare us the revisionist history.
Here’s hoping Manchin finally wakes up to political reality.
If Donald Trump was looking for some good news on his 75th birthday last Monday, it arrived at 8:15 a.m. by way of a blue Mercedes slipping into Trump Tower’s private garage entrance on West 56th Street.
Behind the wheel was Allen Weisselberg, Trump’s longtime confidant and Trump Organization chief financial officer, whom the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has pressed to turn on the former president as they investigate Trump’s business dealings.
Every day that Weisselberg arrives for work at Trump Tower — as he did that day, steering in from his Upper West Side apartment across town — could be seen as a public signal that he is sticking with Trump and deflecting investigators’ advances.
As the most senior non-Trump executive at the former president’s private, closely held company, Weisselberg is probably a key figure in prosecutors’ efforts to indict Trump, legal experts say. His central role in nearly every aspect of Trump’s business, revealed in depositions and news interviews over the past three decades, afforded him what former employees say is a singular view of the Trump Organization’s tax liabilities and finances.
Although that role long allowed him to stay behind the scenes, it may place him front and center in what would be an unprecedented prosecution of a former president, should the investigation advance.
[…] officials involved in the Weisselberg investigation have grown frustrated about what they view as a lack of cooperation from Weisselberg and believe he continues to regularly speak with Trump […]
[…] Without Weisselberg’s cooperation, legal experts say, it’s unclear whether prosecutors would be able to establish any required intent on Trump’s part were they to allege that the Trump Organization or any of its officers committed crimes. (The district attorney has the option to indict companies rather than individuals.)
Those experts say Weisselberg’s legal exposure could be significant — including the possibility of prison time — if the district attorney is able to prove allegations that have been reported, such as misrepresenting the company’s assets or income with banks, insurers or tax authorities.
“I think he’s playing Russian roulette with the district attorney’s office if he thinks that even if he is indicted he is going to get a pass,” said Robert C. Gottlieb, a New York defense lawyer and former prosecutor for the district attorney. “We’re not talking about fraud involving a few thousand dollars, we’re talking about allegations of a massive fraud involving millions of dollars over an extended period of time in which he was CFO.”
[…] In Florida this year, the Trump Organization filed annual reports for 40 subsidiaries operating in the state. Weisselberg was listed as an officer of all 40, usually along with one or both of Trump’s adult sons. Trump was largely absent, having not retaken the leadership roles he held before he became president. He was listed as an officer of just one company: He is the president of the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, a designation that allowed him to reside at the for-profit club after neighbors raised objections.
[…] In one deposition, [Weisselberg] recalled from memory detailed financial figures from across the company: 300 memberships for sale at Trump’s golf course in Bedminster, N.J.; 55 home lots the company intended to sell at Trump’s course in Los Angeles; and the $10.4 million cost of the clubhouse at Trump’s golf club in West Palm Beach.
But in other instances, Weisselberg — when asked about apparent discrepancies in Trump’s claims or an incident of alleged misconduct — has cited a lack of knowledge or a lapse in memory.
“I wish I could answer,” he told investigators for the New York attorney general’s office in 2017, as he was pressed about an improper $25,000 political gift made by the foundation. Investigators wanted to know how the gift had been hidden in the charity’s tax returns, replaced with a nonexistent gift to another group. Weisselberg said it must have been a series of mistakes he called “the perfect storm.” But he could not say who exactly made them. […]
ravensays
Covid Rebounds in U.S. South, With Many Shunning Vaccines
By Jonathan Levin June 21, 2021, 12:38 Bloomberg . com
Covid Rebounds in U.S. South, With Many Shunning Vaccines
Covid-19 transmission is accelerating in several poorly vaccinated states, primarily in the South plus Missouri and Utah, and more young people are turning up at hospitals. The data present the clearest sign of a rebound in the U.S. in months.
In Missouri, Arkansas and Utah, the seven-day average of hospital admissions with confirmed Covid-19 has increased more than 30% in the past two weeks, according to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. In Mississippi, the hospitalization rate is up 5% in the period.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
There are many Covid-19 virus mini-pandemics in the Red states that have many antivaxxers.
Ironically, the antivaxxers will get vaccinated, whether they want to or not.
The hard way, by getting infected by the virus and risking death or permanent disability.
KGsays
SC@25,
It’s interesting that the shift to the far right of the UK’s self-styled “Revolutionary Communist Party” began with support for Serbian nationalism in the mid-1990s, and denial of the genocide in Srebrenica, which led to a libel trial that closed their glossy magazine, “Living Marxism”. Many of the RCP’s leading members moved to the “libertarian” right, and now increasingly toward racism and authoritarianism, enthusiastically supporting Farage, Orbán, and the Johnson junta’s culture war. The exposure of their lies in the libel trial did them no long-term harm at all – they are regularly booked by the BBC for discussion programmes, for example.
raven @ #31, I keep hearing about how popular Ron DeSantis is and how Florida is doing fine, but I’ve been checking the CDC numbers every day for months and Florida is consistently lagging. This month, DeSantis stopped the state’s daily reporting of COVID numbers (now only reported weekly), the reporting of COVID hospitalizations, and the reporting of county-by-county figures. He justified the move by claiming that the numbers had dropped so much that it was no longer necessary. But the state’s 7-day case rate is double the national average (45 per 100K vs. 22 per 100K; for comparison, MA’s is 8 and CT’s is 7); their 7-day death rate per 100K is also double the national average (1.2 vs. .6; for comparison, RI’s is .3, and VT hasn’t had any deaths in the past week). (The New England states are the six most vaccinated states right now.)
FL’s vaccinations, testing, and test positivity have been fair to middling for weeks. I saw a report that the Delta variant has been found in South Florida (since they’re not doing a lot of testing and likely little sequencing, it’s probably more prevalent than they know), and they’re in a hot and rainy stretch so people will likely be indoors more. Missouri, where the Delta variant has taken hold, now has a weekly case rate of 75/100K. Florida is around 44% fully vaccinated vs. Missouri’s 38%, which doesn’t strike me as a decisive difference. I hope the Delta variant isn’t able to gain a foothold there, but even without it Florida’s numbers are no cause for relaxation.
A Florida county shuttered its main administration building after several employees contracted COVID-19 and two people died, officials said.
Employees of the Manatee County Administration Building were ordered to leave Friday afternoon while the facility was disinfected and fogged. Epidemiologists were onsite initiating contact tracing, according to a press release from county officials.
Manatee County officials did not say how many people contracted COVID, but County Administrator Dr. Scott Hopes said “individual employees in the IT department who were known to be fully vaccinated and who were in close proximity of those who were infected did not contract COVID-19,” according to a statement.
Hundreds of employees are believed to work in the building, which includes the state attorney’s office and an office for Republican Rep. Will Robinson of Bradenton. The building is set to re-open Monday. Face masks will still be optional for employees and visitors, although unvaccinated residents were encouraged to wear masks.
The board of county commissioners voted last month to repeal COVID safety measures and instead encouraged visitors to use their best judgment to prevent the spread of the virus. The decision was in line with Gov. Ron DeSantis’ statewide orders. In May, the Republican governor suspended all remaining local COVID-19 restrictions and mandates on individuals and businesses, saying it would accelerate Florida’s economy.
Hopes encouraged residents to get vaccinated on Twitter Friday….
June 21 is the first full day of astronomical summer — and meteorologists all over the world have declared it #ShowYourStripesDay. On this day, expect to see your TV meteorologist sporting blue, white and red striped ties or pins or even custom dresses.
The stripes are a clever visualization of the changing temperature of the planet created by Ed Hawkins at the University of Reading. The blue color on one side shows that conditions in the early part of the 20th century were colder than the long-term average. The white that pops up in the middle represents temperatures close to average, and the red at the tip of the tie or the edge of the pin means warm. When viewed in this way, the trend in global warming is striking — the red that starts to pop at the end (roughly 1980) as global warming really kicks in….
Uefa will not allow rainbow display at Germany v Hungary
The planned ‘rainbow illumination’ of Munich’s stadium tomorrow, in response to homophobic legislation in Hungary, has been deemed too political by European football’s impeccably neutral overlords. This from PA Media:
Uefa has declined a request to illuminate the Euro 2020 stadium in Munich in rainbow colours for the Germany v Hungary match because it believes the gesture has a political context.
European football’s governing body said it received the request from the mayor of the German city, Dieter Reiter, on Monday.
Uefa said that the mayor’s reason for the request was a response to legislation passed in Hungary banning gay people from appearing in school educational materials or programmes for under-18s.
On that basis, Uefa said it could not grant the request and proposed alternative dates for the stadium to be lit up in rainbow colours.
“Racism, homophobia, sexism, and all forms of discrimination are a stain on our societies – and represent one of the biggest problems faced by the game today,” a statement from Uefa read.
“Discriminatory behaviour has marred both matches themselves and, outside the stadiums, the online discourse around the sport we love.
“However Uefa, through its statutes, is a politically and religiously neutral organisation. Given the political context of this specific request – a message aiming at a decision taken by the Hungarian national parliament – Uefa must decline this request.”
So opposing discrimination isn’t political but opposing specific acts of discrimination is.
Barack Obama has backed conservative West Virginia Democratic senator Joe Manchin’s voting rights proposal, calling it a “product of compromise” as the landmark legislation struggles towards a crucial vote in the US Senate on Tuesday.
The former US president weighed in, as did his wife and former first lady, Michelle Obama, decrying Republican efforts in many statehouses across the country to bring in new laws that restrict voting, and urging Congress to pass federal legislation “before it’s too late”.
Barack Obama said the future of the country was at stake.
“I have tried to make it a policy not to weigh in on the day-to-day scrum in Washington, but what is happening this week is more than just a particular bill coming up or not coming up to a vote,” he said in an interview with Yahoo News.
He added: “I do want folks who may not be paying close attention to what’s happening … to understand the stakes involved here, and why this debate is so vitally important to the future of our country,” Obama said.
And the White House said on Monday it views the Senate’s work on an elections bill overhaul and changes being offered by Manchin as a “step forward”, even though the Democrats’ priority legislation is expected to be blocked by a Republican filibuster.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the revisions proposed by Manchin are a compromise, another step as Democrats work to shore up voting access and what Joe Biden sees as “a fight of his presidency”….
Not political, but lovely – from the Guardian – “Joni Mitchell’s Blue: my favourite song – by James Taylor, Carole King, Graham Nash, David Crosby and more”: “As the legendary album turns 50, the musicians it inspired – and those who inspired it – tell us which track means the most to them and why.”
Last week, the Hungarian parliament banned any portrayal of homosexuality or transgenderism to minors, in educational material or on television. Appending this to a law protecting children from child abuse, the country’s president, Viktor Orbán, drew an explicit connection between homosexuality and paedophilia. In so doing, he resorted to a canard that much of the world has long dispensed with, but that is enjoying a troubling new emergence in the global battles against “gender ideology”: the danger posed by homosexuals and trans people to children.
“The logic of the government is to find an enemy and pretend that they are saving the country from this enemy,” said the Hungarian LGBTQ+ leader Tamás Dombos in a presentation to the United States Congress last week. Dombos described the new law as “a conscious and diabolic political strategy” by the government to divert public attention from its messy response to the Covid crisis. The law is also a salvo in a tough upcoming election, and an effective way of staking what I term a “pink line”: a nativist boundary protecting, in this case, Hungarian “values” against the immoral imperialism of George Soros and Brussels.
In this way, the Hungarian law echoes what Vladimir Putin did in 2012 when he used Russia’s “anti-gay propaganda” legislation to counter the growing urban opposition to his bid for a third presidential term. It also sets the scene for a Hungarian repeat of Andrzej Duda’s electoral campaign in Poland last year, which attacked “LGBT ideology”. Ironically, these “anti-west” politicians are using the playbook developed in the United States by Anita Bryant’s 1977 “Save Our Children” campaign in Florida, which sought to expunge all references to homosexuality from curriculums, and resulted in several laws across the country. Long before Russia and Hungary, Margaret Thatcher’s British government passed section 28, banning the “promotion” of homosexuality in schools. This was only repealed in 2003 in England and Wales; in the US “no promo homo” laws are still on the books in four southern states. Recently, two states – Arizona and Tennessee – have come close to restricting students’ access to information about sexual orientation and gender identity.
Meanwhile, in Brazil, the president, Jair Bolsonaro, has committed himself to expunging the word “gender” and any talk of homosexuality or transgenderism from the curriculum. There are attempts to do so legally in more than 100 Brazilian jurisdictions, and even though the supreme court has ruled against 11 of these already, the process continues unabated.
In Africa, several countries have retreated from a commitment to the UN-approved comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) because of spirited opposition from the religious right. In the runup to Ghana’s 2020 election campaign, a religious lobby constituted itself against what it termed “Comprehensive Satanic Education” – primarily because it allegedly promoted LGBTQ+ rights. The fear and hatred generated in this debate fuelled a clampdown in the country: its first LGBTQ community centre was shut down earlier this year; and 21 young people attending a paralegal training event were arrested for “advocating LGBTQ activities” last month.
A similar anti-CSE campaign was successful in Zambia, and is gaining ground in populous Ethiopia, too. Like those in Latin American and eastern Europe, these campaigns used materials and tactics generated by “pro-family” movements in the US, primarily Family Watch International (FWI) and the World Congress of Families (WCF). FWI, which is based in Arizona, and led the anti-LGBTQ+ education campaign there, has provided the muscle to the Ghana and Ethiopia campaigns in particular.
In the Catholic world, these campaigns intersect with conservative organisations such as Opus Dei, and more recently with Ordo Iuris, an influential organisation of Polish Catholic lawyers that has just opened a university in Warsaw as an explicit counterweight to George Soros’s Central European University. Eastern European conservatives claim to be mounting a counterattack against the leftist orthodoxy about gender and homosexuality, which they equate – as Hungary’s Viktor Orbán often does – to communist ideology….
Kelly Morales, Alex Jones’s ex-wife: “Here is my ex-husband, under investigation by the FBI speculating about getting framed for ‘killing (his) family’. This includes my kids. How on earth did Judge Livingston in Travis County, Texas not protect my vulnerable, minor kids who outcried about his threats??…”
How encouraging to see Uefa masterminding a return of jeopardy to the Euros. Not in the football, you understand – putting four third-place teams through simply further deflates the group stages of an already format-compromised 24-team tournament. But threatening last week to take the final away from Wembley and move it to Hungary unless 2,500 of their dignitaries can swerve quarantine – well, this is the stuff of which perilous thrills are made.
Not that a Budapest final wouldn’t offer something fresh: large numbers of openly racist and homophobic fans who are finally under investigation by Uefa for their conduct thus far during the tournament. The governing body has sensationally abandoned its high-level probe into German captain Manuel Neuer’s decision to wear a rainbow armband, and seems to be belatedly taking a look at “potential discriminatory incidents” at Hungary games against both Portugal and France….
Anyway, back to the horse-trading over arrangements for the semi-finals and final. What are we to make of this morning’s news that Uefa is suddenly more positive about not having to move the final from London to a place where its gravy train can travel freely? I am vaguely paraphrasing its statement – in the governing body’s own words, it is “working closely” with the government and the FA, and there are “no plans to change the venue”. The optimistic among us would hope Uefa might come to understand that trying to blag 2,500 members of the “football family” through under the elite sport exemption was a bit of a stretch – unless the sport in question was expensing five-course dinners and sex workers.
But the realists among us – ie everyone with any experience of football governance and current UK governance – will be thinking that something rather less palatable is in the offing. Is hosting the final worth further compromising the idea that we’re all somehow in this together, or is the waiving of Covid rules for a bunch of largely parasitic liggers regarded as a price worth paying by Boris Johnson’s government?
…
According to Boris Johnson, his government wishes to make “sensible accommodations” for Uefa. But where are the “sensible accommodations” for people forced to isolate on no pay for happening to sit at a separate table in an outdoor beer garden near someone who tested positive? Where are the “sensible accommodations” for double-vaccinated people who wish to travel to Malta, which is miles ahead of us on vaccinations and would surely be on the green list, were the green list not a stage-managed fiction?
With Covid set to cause disruptions deep into winter, the government should be looking to keep people onside – and the appearance of fairness is key. Otherwise, increasing numbers of people will decide that the most sensible accommodation they can make with government advice is to ignore it. It’s only a game to them, after all.
Cuba claims its three-shot jab is 92% effective without citing data
Cuba’s government has announced that its three-shot Abdala vaccine has proved to be 92% effective against the coronavirus.
It provided no details of the clinical testing, according to AP. The Abdala is one of the vaccines Cuba is testing. It recently said its Soberana 2 vaccine has shown a 62% efficacy. It comes as Cuba faces its worst outbreak since the start of the pandemic with record new infections.
Dr Francisco Durán, the island’s director of epidemiology, yesterday reported 1,561 new coronavirus cases for a total of 169,365 cumulative confirmed cases and 1,170 deaths over the course of the pandemic on the island of 11 million people.
You can’t tell by looking at him, but retired Staff Sgt. Wesley Black is about to die. He’s just 35 years old.
And today he’s having what he calls a good day.
“I could be dead tomorrow. I could live another six months … It really all just depends on how my body responds to the oral chemotherapy, how much more I can squeeze out of the stone,” Black told CNN in an interview in his home on Thursday.
Black has terminal colon cancer that has spread throughout his body. He survived two combat deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan with the Vermont National Guard and received numerous honors, including a Purple Heart.
Although it’s difficult to definitively link individual cases of cancer and disorder to a specific cause, an oncologist outside the Veterans Affairs system who reviewed Black’s case determined it’s the smoldering trash from the massive burn pits on US military bases — sometimes acres in size — that will soon kill him.
“Soldiers tend to generate a lot of trash,” Black told CNN. “Metals, plastics, electronics, medical waste, your uniform — anything and everything that could be burned was thrown in the trash dump and then coated in diesel fuel and lit on fire.”
In Ramadi, Iraq, where Black served, he says the burn pit was several football fields in length. And at the remote combat outpost where he served in eastern Afghanistan, Black recalls how the burn pit was located just 150 feet from the front gate.
“If you were the poor sucker standing gate guard when that burn pit was lit and the wind was blowing toward the main gate, you’d be standing in the smoke for upwards of eight to 12 hours a day.”
Thousands of American service members have inhaled the carcinogenic haze of burn pit smoke just as he did.
A recent survey by Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America found that 86% of veterans from the two conflicts reported being exposed to the toxic fumes of burn pits. And 88% of those exposed said they were experiencing symptoms that could be related.
The VA acknowledges on their site that waste products disposed of in open burn pits include chemicals, paint, medical and human waste, along with things like munitions and petroleum products.
…
As the post 9/11 wars come to an end in the coming months, burn pits and exposure to other toxins threaten to kill many more veterans than fighting in the wars did.
And the White House is acutely aware of the problem.
President Joe Biden, as a candidate, said he believes burn pits may have killed his beloved son Beau, who died of cancer in 2015.
“He volunteered to join the National Guard at age 32 because he thought he had an obligation to go,” Biden told a Service Employees International Union convention in 2019. “And because of exposure to burn pits, in my view — I can’t prove it yet — he came back with stage four glioblastoma.”
Biden repeated this message on several campaign stops, vowing to vigorously research the long-term effects of burn pit exposure while noting that he “can’t prove it yet.”
But burn pits have been on the legislative radar of the past two presidents, including bills signed into law that expand the data on exposure.
…
The VA says the Department of Defense has shut down most burn pits at this point and is planning to close the remainder.
But the VA website in March 2020, under Trump, officially denied that burn pit exposure was harmful: “At this time, research does not show evidence of long-term health problems from exposure to burn pits.”
Today, the VA website acknowledges the issue is being studied and that those exposed “may be at greater risk for longer-term health conditions.”
In an email to CNN on Sunday, Veterans Affairs press secretary Terrence Hayes wrote: “VA is fully committed and leaning forward in this effort and working alongside Congress … and all other available scientific sources to deliver on the President’s promise to provide the world-class health care and access to benefits Veterans need, and quite frankly deserve.”
Hayes urged veterans exposed to sign up for the burn pit registry and those feeling ill due to a possible toxic exposure to submit a claim.
“The more veterans who do so only helps us gather the information and research needed to provide the care they require.”
Black is demanding more.
“They’re not doing enough. That’s the long and short of it. There needs to be a set process to identify these issues and to follow up on these issues,” Black told CNN. “If [the cancer] had been caught earlier, my survivability rate would’ve been higher.”
Unable to save himself, Black is sounding the alarm for other veterans while pushing for additional screening of burn pit exposure and more proactive monitoring and treatment from VA providers….
More than 60,000 fans will be allowed into Wembley for the semi-finals and final of Euro 2020 after a deal was struck between the UK government and Uefa.
The biggest crowds at a British sporting event for 15 months are now in prospect, although details of who will be able to attend the matches, and how, remain unresolved.
Wembley is to be allowed to open up to 75% of its 90,000 capacity for the three games, due to be played on 7, 8 and 11 July, respectively. It means there will be at least 35,000 extra tickets made available for the climax of the tournament. The government says they expect that priority of access will be given to UK residents who lost their tickets when capacity was first cut due to the pandemic.
David Squires on … Euro 2020 plans going awry
Read more
Wembley was only granted an initial extension in capacity last week, when the bar was raised from 22,500 to 45,000. Despite pausing the final stage of its proposed reopening due to a resurgence in Covid-19, the government said Wembley could hold bigger crowds during Euro 2020 as part of its ‘events research programme’. After a week in which rumours circulated that Uefa is willing to move the final to Budapest, where there are no restrictions on capacity, and after the mayor of Rome offered to host the match at the Olimpico, that capacity has now risen again.
Meanwhile, officials at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) say discussions are ongoing over controversial requests from Uefa that VIPs, sponsors and broadcast partners be allowed to travel to the final without the need to quarantine.
There are similar discussions over whether, and how, to allow overseas fans into the country for the latter stages. Earlier this week, Uefa proposed that fans should be able to travel into the country in 24-hour ‘bubbles’, where fans’ movements would be restricted to “approved transport and venues only”….
WASHINGTON (CN) — A federal judge in Washington on Tuesday dismissed claims former President Donald Trump, former Attorney General Bill Barr and other officials conspired to violate the rights of Black people and their supporters by using violent force to remove protesters from Lafayette Square last year.
Black Lives Matter D.C. and individual protesters who were assembled in the park across from the White House on June 1, 2020, claim in four civil lawsuits against several federal individual and agency defendants that law enforcement officials illegally broke up their peaceful demonstrations against racial injustice with tear gas, flash-bang grenades, smoke bombs and rubber bullets — just before Trump walked through the area for a photo op in front of St. John’s Church.
[…]
The plaintiffs claim Trump, Barr and then-Secretary of Defense Mark Esper directed the conspiracy to target racial justice protesters and other defendants participated in the conspiracy and “willfully or negligently” failed to prevent it.
But U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich, a Trump appointee, said in her 51-page ruling that the plaintiffs’ allegations did not prove an agreement existed between the defendants to violate their rights.
“…they demonstrate only that these officials were communicating with each other on June 1, prior to and after the clearing of Lafayette Square,” Friedrich wrote.
Friedrich also dismissed the plaintiffs’ claims for monetary damages against Barr and other federal officials for alleged violations of First, Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights….”national security — specifically, the country’s national-security interest in the safety and security of the President and the area surrounding the White House — strongly weighs….”
ACLU D.C. Legal Director Scott Michelman said ….“Today’s ruling essentially gives the federal government a green light to use violence, including lethal force against demonstrators, as long as federal officials claim to be protecting national security,” Michelman said.
Day 10 of Netanyahu family sit-in at the prime minister’s official residence.
@ZmanIsrael: Every employee of the PM’s residence has been fired but for “one maintenance worker, who’ll remain as long as the [Netanyahu] is there or if the building is vacant. Such a house cannot be abandoned with no maintenance workers.”
A knowledgable source told @ZmanIsrael that @IsraeliPM’s office & the Civil Service do not know what is actually happening at the residence, whether and at what rate workers are leaving & whether some are still there & coming to work.
“Russia has decided that Bard College, which has a study abroad program in St Petersburg for Russian language undergraduate students, ‘threatens the foundations of Russia’s constitutional order and security’. Yikes!”
Vladimir Putin is afraid of the fucking Bard College study abroad program.
Texans love their dogs, no doubt. But now, some Texans are calling out Gov. Greg Abbott, alleging that he does not.
The Republican governor vetoed a bill Friday to expand animal cruelty laws and make the unlawful restraint of a dog a criminal offense.
Senate Bill 474, better known as the Safe Outdoor Dogs Act, would provide greater protections for dogs, including banning the use of heavy chains to tether dogs.
Animal control officers, law enforcement agencies, county prosecutors and animal advocates called for reform to the existing tethering law passed nearly 15 years ago to prevent cruel and inhumane tethering.
In the meantime, a number of cities, including Dallas, Galveston and Texas City, have taken matters into their own hands by adopting their own tethering ordinances. Some ban its use completely, while others place limits.
In Houston, the restraint must be greater than 10 feet in length or five times the length of the dog and cannot cause injury or visible discomfort.
The Texas Humane Legislation Network (THLN), a nonprofit that promotes anti-cruelty legislation and one of the ringleaders in efforts to pass the bill, said it would have provided “much-needed clarification to existing law to establish basic standards of outdoor shelter and restraint for dogs.”
The bill specifies that dog owners can have dogs outside but cannot restrain them with chains, short lines or anything that “causes pain or injury to the dog.”
…
The bill received ample bipartisan support in the Texas legislature, passing in the Senate 28-3 and the House 83-32, but died once it reached Abbott’s desk.
Abbott, who is a dog dad to a golden retriever, Pancake, sees nothing wrong with the current law and said state statutes already protect dogs by “outlawing true animal cruelty.”
“Senate Bill 474 would compel every dog owner, on pain of criminal penalties, to monitor things like the tailoring of the dog’s collar, the time the dog spends in the bed of a truck, and the ratio of tether-to-dog length, as measured from the tip of the nose to the base of the tail,” he said in a release.
“Texas is no place for this kind of micro-managing and over-criminalization.”
THLN representatives originally felt hopeful after the recent victory from the legislature given the tethering legislation’s previous failures to pass for nearly a decade.
Now they say they’re devastated by the governor’s decision.
Executive director Shelby Bobosky released the following statement:
Governor Abbott says that the current Texas statute already protects dogs, but this bill – which was carried with active support from sheriffs, law enforcement and animal control offers – would have clarified the vague language that makes the statute completely unenforceable. SB 474 contained simple fixes to protect dogs that are left outside on heavy chains with no shelter or water in a state that experiences extreme high and low temperatures. All the elements Governor Abbott cited as “micromanagement” were carefully negotiated compromises that addressed concerns from lawmakers in both parties to strike the right balance for our diverse state. The passage of the bill in both chambers with overwhelming bipartisan support from rural, urban, and suburban members was the result of six years of tireless effort by THLN and all stakeholders who care for dogs inhumanely restrained outdoors. The issues that this bill intended to address will not go away, and neither will we. Preventing animal cruelty while making our state a safer place is one of the few nonpartisan issues facing the legislature and animal advocates are reliable primary and general voters.”
Some law enforcement agencies who also supported the bill expressed their disappointment.
…
Many dog lovers on Twitter are condemning the governor for his decision.
The ruling has recycled #AbbottFailedTexas on Twitter and even started a new trend, #AbbottHatesDogs….
A Navy counterterrorism training document obtained exclusively by The Intercept appears to conflate socialists with terrorists and lists the left-wing ideology alongside “neo-nazis.”
A section of the training document subtitled “Study Questions” includes the following: “Anarchists, socialists and neo-nazis represent which terrorist ideological category?”
The correct answer is “political terrorists,” a military source briefed on the training told me. The document, titled “Introduction to Terrorism/Terrorist Operations,” is part of a longer training manual recently disseminated by the Naval Education Training and Command’s Navy Tactical Training Center in conjunction with the Center for Security Forces. The training is designed for masters-at-arms, the Navy’s internal police, the military source said.
“It’s just ineffective training because whoever is directing the Navy anti-terror curriculum would rather vilify the left than actually protect anything,” said the military official, who is not authorized to speak publicly. “Despite the fact that the most prominent threat is domestic, right-wing terror.”
Both the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security have identified white supremacists as the deadliest terror threat to the United States. In October 2020, the Department of Homeland Security issued its first annual “Homeland Threat Assessment” report, stating that white supremacists were “exceptionally lethal” and “will remain the most persistent and lethal threat in the homeland.” In September, FBI Director Christopher Wray, in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, said that white supremacists “have been responsible for the most lethal attacks over the last decade” and that they comprise “the biggest chunk of our domestic terrorism portfolio.”
Asked about the debate over how to respond to the domestic terror threat, Kevin Kline, a former FBI assistant special agent-in-charge at the bureau’s New Haven field office, agreed that the white supremacist threat was serious but warned that any response must respect constitutionally protected activity like speech. “No matter what we do in responding to the domestic terrorism problem, the constitution cannot be a casualty,” Kline said.
While the right has been vocal with its concerns about being unfairly targeted for political opinions, media coverage of the Biden administration’s focus on domestic extremism has paid considerably less attention to what it might mean for movements on the left, including Black Lives Matter, antifa (short for anti-fascists), and the environmental movement. In fact, internal FBI documents I reported on in 2019 specifically list anarchists and environmental extremists among its counterterrorism priorities.
…
As The Intercept reported in a recent series, the Justice Department’s handling of domestic extremism can often be arbitrary and disproportionate to any threat its targets may pose. One example of this is Black activist groups, which, as former FBI agent Mike German has pointed out, the FBI has been targeting for many years.
…
The FBI’s Iron Fist program was concerning enough that then-Rep. Cedric Richmond, now a senior adviser to President Joe Biden, grilled the FBI director about it in 2019. It was far from the only time during the Trump administration that Democrats expressed concerns that the national security state was targeting groups on the political left. But those concerns have waned under the Biden administration, despite an intensified focus on domestic extremists that could include groups on the left, as the Navy document suggests.
According to the military source, the training materials also include a “black panthers fist symbol on a slide of terror orgs with al Qaeda.”
Echoing Kline’s concerns about constitutional rights, a senior Defense Department official familiar with the development of the military’s domestic extremism program said that defining “extremism” in a way that respects First Amendment rights was proving exceptionally difficult. An internal Pentagon draft document proposing language to define extremism, reviewed by The Intercept, is three pages long, the tortured language reflecting attempts not to violate First Amendment rights, according to the senior Defense Department official.
The Pentagon appears to be aware of the constitutional risks. A separate internal Pentagon document about the definition of extremism states: “As appealing as the concept of a one sentence definition may be, this would carry both practical and legal risks. A single sentence definition, crafted too narrowly, might fail to prohibit actions that threaten the Department’s ability to carry out its mission. A less specific definition, on the other hand, risks being so vague as to prohibit or chill Constitutionally protected conduct by servicemembers.”…
One of the representatives asked Wray in the recent House hearing (and not for the first time) if he could name any “Black Identity Extremist” organizations. IIRC, he could not.
Re: 7 (Covid-19 situation being out of hand in Russia)
Video footage emerged on social media on Sunday, purportedly showing people sick with Covid-19 laying prone on the floor of a hospital corridor in St Petersburg, Putin’s home city which is hosting some matches in the Euro 2020 soccer championship, Reuters reports. Local authorities are investigating the video to check its veracity.
Lots of Finnish soccerball fans were in St. Petersburg, and then rushed back home at once, mostly through one single border checkpoint, which was badly congested in a baking hot weather. According to the news, the authorities had to temporarily waive Covid-19 testing at the border to make traffic go more smoothly. For some weird reason, Finland is also increasingly opening travel from Russia, even though it is known that a good number of travelers carry Covid-19 and some of them have the delta variant, which is thus far barely present in Finland.
“Breaking News: Four Saudis who participated in the 2018 killing of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi received paramilitary training in the U.S. under a contract approved by the State Department, according to documents and people familiar with the arrangement….”
Here in the YooKay, <Ahref=”https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/22/no-10-says-g7-summit-not-to-blame-for-rise-in-cornwalls-covid-cases”>the G7 is the latest superspreader event*, although it will undoubtedly be be surpassed by Euro2020.
*Note the misdirection in Johnson’s denial. He says the delegates were all tested. The huge numbers of police, media and others brough to the area by the event were not.
Chinese exporters and American importers have been misrepresenting data to avoid paying taxes or losing out on rebates.
Starting in early 2020, a very unlikely anomaly started appearing in global trade data: China said it was selling more goods to the US than the US reported buying from China. [I suspect Bloomberg means more “by value” than in the sense of “number of widgets”, as per the reset of this Al Jazerra article –blf]
That was a reversal of the normal pattern and a product of the two nations’ trade war — but not an intended consequence. Instead, it was likely due to misreporting by both exporters in China and importers in the US, according to new research from Federal Reserve economists.
Companies in the US could pay less in tariffs if they under-reported the value of goods imported from China, while firms in China could get higher value-added tax rebates if they over-reported the value of exports, the economists argue.
Usually, the import value of a good when it enters one country should be higher than the value of the same good when it leaves another nation. That’s because import prices usually include the cost of freight and insurance, while exports do not.
Until February 2020, this was the case with bilateral US-China trade — US goods imports from China were always valued as worth more than China’s exports to the US. However, since March the opposite has been reported for almost every month. [graph at link …]
The misreporting by both American and Chinese companies explain most of the contraction in the US-China trade deficit since the two sides started imposing tariffs on each other in 2018, the Fed economists Hunter Clark and Anna Wong argue. […]
blfsays
Follow-up to @73(and @74, both previous thread), Biafra war criminal and current Nigerian “president”, Muhammadu Buhari, threw a snit after being temporarily banned by twittering, and decreed it “illegal” to access twittering.
Local rights group, along with dozens of Nigerians, had gone to Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States to fight the ban.
[… T]he Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), a local rights group, along with 176 other Nigerians, went to court to fight the ban.
On Tuesday, a statement describing the decision to suspend the hugely popular social media platform’s operations as an attempt to silence criticism of the government from SERAP quoted the Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) as saying it was restraining the government from acting against citizens or media outlets over the use of Twitter, pending a substantive ruling on the core issue.
[…]
Applicants also urged the court to hold the Nigerian government liable for the violation of “their fundamental human right and for breaching its international obligations” by banning Twitter.
[…]
Nigeria’s Information minister Lai Mohammed has previously said the suspension had nothing to do with Buhari’s tweet being deleted, but rather with separatists inciting violence online.
Regulating social media is not about stifling press freedom. All we are talking about is the responsible use of these platforms, he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, adding that Facebook, WhatsApp and YouTube were still accessible.
In 2021, Nigeria ranked 120th out of 180 countries in the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) World Press Freedom Index.
I’m unclear on that the so-called “core issue” is (at least as the court sees it).
blfsays
SC@7, “What is going on in Russia [with Covid-19]?”
[…]
Russia has registered its highest number of COVID-19 deaths for a single day since early February as a dramatic rise in infections fuelled by the Delta variant grips the country.
[…]
It came against the backdrop of a sharp uptick in cases that authorities blame on the highly transmissible Delta variant, first identified in India.
[…]
Life in Moscow, as in most of Russia, has remained largely normal after lockdown restrictions were lifted last year.
Russian authorities resisted shutting down businesses or imposing another lockdown when infections soared in the autumn and winter, and continue to reject the idea of a lockdown during the current surge.
The Kremlin last week blamed the recent increase in cases on people’s reluctance to have vaccinations and “nihilism”.
There are currently c.14,000 hospitialised cases in Moscow alone, and “[Mayor Sergei] Sobyanin has attributed the infection spike to the Delta variant.”
The $50m in funding for Gaza, occupied West Bank was approved by Congress but is being held up by a top Republican senator.
[Last month, Republican Senator James Risch placed a hold on] $50m in economic assistance to the Palestinians, undercutting promises of help by Secretary of State Antony Blinken after Israel’s assault on Gaza in May and delaying the much-needed reconstruction of water resources and roads.
[…]
Advocates for US aid to the Palestinians say Risch’s hold on the funds is politically motivated and will eventually have to be lifted. A large group of Democrats in the US House, led by Representative Jamie Raskin, who is Jewish, has demanded Risch release the aid.
A spokeswoman for Risch confirmed to Al Jazeera on Monday the hold remains in place despite the appeals to lift it.
“I just don’t see any justification for withholding the release of funds, other than the continued dehumanisation, ridicule and collective punishment of the Palestinian people, particularly in Gaza,” said Ahmad Abuznaid, executive director of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights.
“It’s a part of the consistent collective punishment of the Palestinian people, particularly the people of Gaza,” Abuznaid told Al Jazeera.
[…]
The dispute in Congress over distributing aid to Gaza and the occupied West Bank shows how a pro-Israel law put in place during the previous Trump administration may hamper the new Biden team’s efforts to moderate the conflict.
[…]
Risch and several other Republicans immediately moved to block most of those funds, accusing the PA of using $150m directed by Abbas to compensate families of Palestinians who killed Israelis in recent years.
Sadly, just after the Biden administration announced additional assistance to the West Bank and Gaza, PA President Abbas issued a $42,000 martyr’s payment to a Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist who stabbed two Israelis to death in 2015. This is outrageous, Risch wrote in a June 15 letter explaining his hold.
[…]
Palestinians view the “martyrs” fund as necessary anti-poverty assistance for the families of Palestinians imprisoned or killed by Israel each year.
[…]
Israeli forces later demolished the man’s family home in Ramallah, part of a controversial policy of retribution aimed at deterring Palestinian attacks. The payment to the family by the PA was to help them with housing costs, according to reports.
In 2018, the US Congress passed a new law, called the “Taylor Force Act”, named after an American graduate student killed by a Palestinian while on an exchange trip in Israel. The law allows legislators to cut off aid to Palestinians if it connects to the PA’s ability to make “martyr” payments.
Palestinian advocates in the US say that, while Congress technically has authority to review the $50m that is being blocked, the money is destined for projects and developments handled by non-governmental organisations, not the PA.
“Setting aside the problems with the Taylor Force Act, the humanitarian aid that Senator Risch is holding up, does not trigger and is not impacted by the Taylor Force Act,” said Huwaida Arraf, a Palestinian American human rights lawyer in Detroit.
“It’s shameful, but not surprising, that the senator is so callously withholding this desperately needed aid,” Arraf told Al Jazeera.
In 2018, former President Donald Trump cut off $200m in US aid designated for the United Nations relief agency for Palestinian refugees. The Biden administration announced in April it was restoring $150m for the UN agency. Those funds are not impeded by the Taylor Force Act.
Even with that aid, the scope of the needs in the Palestinian territories is enormous. “Gaza is experiencing a humanitarian catastrophe,” Representative Raskin wrote in his letter signed by 145 Democrats urging Risch not to delay US assistance.
“Buildings lie in rubble. Access to clean water and electricity is sporadic or nonexistent. Food insecurity is spreading. COVID-19 is running rampant and thousands of people have been displaced and rendered homeless. The magnitude of the crisis is staggering.”
[…]
KGsays
The Kremlin last week blamed the recent increase in cases on people’s reluctance to have vaccinations and “nihilism”. – blf@63 quoting Aljazeera quoting a Kremlin spokesminion
Nihilism is a risk factor for Covid-19? Focus origin research on nihilistic bats!
The first trial under Hong Kong’s new national security law began on Wednesday without a jury, a watershed moment for the financial hub’s fast-changing legal landscape.
Tong Ying-kit, 24, was arrested the day after the sweeping new law came into effect when he allegedly drove his motorcycle into a group of police officers during protests on 1 July last year.
Footage showed his motorcycle was flying a flag that read “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times”, a popular pro-democracy protest slogan that is now deemed illegal under the national security law.
Tong faces charges of inciting secession and terrorism, as well as a charge of dangerous driving. He pleaded not guilty to all three charges as the trial began on Wednesday morning.
…
Two courts have rejected Tong’s plea to have his case heard by a jury, which his legal team had argued was a constitutional right given that he faces a life sentence if convicted.
Trial by jury has been a cornerstone of Hong Kong’s 176-year-old common law system and is described by the city’s judiciary on its website as one of the legal system’s “most important features”.
But the national security law, which was written in Beijing and imposed on Hong Kong last year after the democracy protests, allows for cases to be tried by three specially selected judges.
The city’s justice secretary invoked the no-jury clause for Tong’s trial, arguing that juror safety could be compromised in Hong Kong’s febrile political landscape.
Tong’s legal team has yet to decide whether to bring their case to Hong Kong’s court of final appeal.
However, the wording of Beijing’s security law makes clear that it trumps any local regulations in the event of a dispute, something successive court rulings have already upheld.
Tong’s case is unusual because he is the only Hongkonger so far charged under the security law with an explicitly violent act.
More than 60 people have now been charged under the law, including some of the city’s best-known democracy activists, but their offences are related to political views or speech that authorities have declared illegal.
…
The [so-called security] law…grants China jurisdiction over some cases and empowers mainland security agents to operate openly in the semi-autonomous city for the first time.
It has removed the presumption of bail for non-violent crimes. Those charged have to instead prove to judges they will no longer pose any sort of national security threat.
The vast majority of those charged have been remanded in custody. Those released have faced a host of restrictions including house arrest, no contact with foreign officials and no media interviews or social media.
The law has also caused jitters within Hong Kong’s business community. Last week, it was invoked to freeze the assets of Apple Daily, a popular pro-democracy newspaper.
Under the security law, no court order or conviction is required for the government to freeze a company’s assets and Apple Daily has since warned it will likely stop publishing this weekend. [They report elsewhere that the paper, published for 26 years, will close today.]…
[I]n unyielding strokes of dark ink and at the height of the famine of 1623,…governor William Bradford wrote the first entry in Plymouth Colony’s Book of Laws on December 27, requiring all criminal trials to be heard by “a jury upon their oaths.”
Written during the throes of starvation, Bradford’s far-reaching act demonstrated emphatic forethought. When Bradford wrote America’s first law on the books, he understood that a trial by jury signified the primary protection of the colonists’ civil liberties. The settlers had crossed the ocean for this right, among others. Bradford knew that legal challenges inevitably awaited the small settlement by the sea, and a jury would provide a way to dispense justice fairly, a necessity for the burgeoning society. (p. 101)
(Interestingly, the author discusses how several of the people involved with the trial had connections to the humanist-leaning Kent, a “hotbed of progressive thought” at the time.)
Here’s a link to the Guardian coronavirus world liveblog.
From their morning summary:
Thailand announced 51 new fatalities, the highest daily death toll since the start of the pandemic, and 3,174 new infections. State-run hospitals in Bangkok are on the brink of running out of space for critically ill patients, according to an official, who said there are just 20 intensive care beds left for emergencies.
NHS bosses have sounded the alarm over the number of people on ventilators in hospital in the UK, which has risen over the past week. The deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, Saffron Cordery, said the number of Covid patients in hospital on ventilation beds had increased by 41% in the last week to 227
There will be a televised press conference at 5pm tonight in the UK from vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi.
…
UK media minister John Whittingdale defended handling of crowds, players and VIPs at Euro 2020, saying: “We’ve always been clear that we were keen to host tournaments in the UK and therefore obviously, we’ve had to make special dispensation already for team members and people closely associated with teams.” He insisted those who would be able to come into the country without quarantining would not be allowed to “just go on a tour of Britain whilst they’re here”. [good grief]
…
New restrictions on gatherings have been introduced in Wellington after a Covid-infected Australian travelled to the New Zealand capital and visited a range of popular tourist locations. “This is not a lockdown,” Covid-19 response minister Chris Hipkins said, but indicated one could come if unconnected cases emerged in the community.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said this morning that its review of Russian vaccine production had found some issues with one Russian manufacturing plant which fills vials with the Sputnik V coronavirus shot. The company involved have said the issues have already been addressed.
Russia has reported 548 coronavirus-related deaths, the most confirmed in a single day since February, amid a surge in new cases that authorities have blamed on the new Delta variant.
Taiwan has extended its level 3 restrictions for another fortnight, five days before they were due to end. A major Taiwanese Buddhist group [?] has said that it was hoping to buy 5m doses of BioNTech vaccine, joining Foxconn and TSMC in trying to secure vaccines for the island.
Direct flights from the southern city of Shenzhen to Beijing have been suspended until at least 1 July ahead of celebrations for the Chinese Communist Party’s founding in the capital on that date. The city is located in the Guangdong province, which is one of China’s most populous and has been battling a Covid outbreak, with 170 confirmed local cases between 21 May and 21 June. No new confirmed local cases were reported for 22 June.
The Red Cross called for faster vaccine rollouts in vulnerable Pacific island nations as a record Covid-19 surge threatens to overload Fiji’s health system.
Japan’s daily rate of coronavirus vaccinations has reached a crucial milestone of 1m, government data has showed.
Olympic organisers will be holding a fresh ticket ballot to reduce the number available from 4.48m to 2.72m.
Colombia became the tenth country in the world to reach 100,000 covid deaths. The South American nation has been registering a growing number of daily cases since April. Over the past seven days, it had the world’s third-highest per capita death rate from Covid-19.
…
US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Dr Rochelle Walensky has said “nearly every death, especially among adults, due to Covid-19 is at this point entirely preventable.”…
(One of the first movies I remember seeing as a kid – on TV, probably PBS – was the 1957 film Beau James. I think about it whenever NYC mayoral politics comes up.)
Delta variant to represent 90% of infections in EU by September, says EU disease agency
The European centre for disease control her warned that by the end of August the Delta strain will represent 90% of all SARS-CoV-2 viruses circulating in the EU, and that it is vital for people, including the young, to get fully vaccinated as the summer holiday season begins.
Director Andrea Ammon said:
Unfortunately, preliminary data shows that it can also infect individuals that have received only one dose of the currently available vaccines. It is very likely that the Delta variant will circulate extensively during the summer, particularly among younger individuals that are not targeted for vaccination.
This could cause a risk for the more vulnerable individuals to be infected and experience severe illness and death if they are not fully vaccinated. The good news is that having received two doses of any of the currently available vaccines provides high protection against this variant and its consequences. However, about 30% of individuals older than 80 years and about 40% of individuals older than 60 years have not yet received a full vaccination course in the European Union.
There are still too many individuals at risk of severe Covid-19 infection whom we need to protect as soon as possible. Until most of the vulnerable individuals are protected, we need to keep the circulation of the Delta virus low by strictly adhering to public health measures, which worked for controlling the impact of other variants.
Merkel: all EU states should quarantine UK arrivals
German chancellor Angela Merkel has said she would like other European countries to follow Germany and require people entering them from countries where there are high levels of the Delta variant, like Britain, to go into quarantine.
“In our country, if you come from Great Britain, you have to go into quarantine – and that’s not the case in every European country, and that’s what I would like to see,” Merkel told the Bundestag lower house of parliament.
Yesterday, Merkel said she hoping for better coordination on pandemic travel rules among the bloc’s 27 member states. She said it was problematic to have a patchwork of regulations. Seemingly, she would like other EU states to follow her lead.
“I regret that we haven’t managed yet to have completely uniform action among the member states on travel guidelines – that is coming back to haunt us,” she told reporters after a meeting with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, according to AFP.
Von der Leyen acknowledged she was “worried” about the spread of the Delta variant, saying it was “only a matter of time” before it became dominant in Europe….
The first minister of Scotland has said that coronavirus could continue to put “huge pressure” on the NHS, with the warning coming after Scotland recorded their highest ever daily total of new cases and the most deaths since April.
Nicola Sturgeon’s warning came after Wednesday’s figures show 2,969 new cases were recorded in the past 24 hours – higher than the 2,649 cases in one day at the height of the winter peak. Five deaths were also recorded in the last 24 hours, the highest daily total since April….
If you’re thinking about going to Florida for college, think again.
In his continued push against the “indoctrination” of students, Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday signed legislation that will require public universities and colleges to survey students, faculty and staff about their beliefs and viewpoints to support “intellectual diversity.”
Journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones says she will not join the faculty at UNC-Chapel Hill unless she has tenure, NC PolicyWatch reported Tuesday, citing a letter from her legal team sent to the university this week.
She will not start her job as Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism at the Hussman School of Journalism and Media on July 1, according to the letter. Hannah-Jones appears to be rescinding the five-year, fixed-term contract that was offered and pursuing a tenure appointment.
The letter was shared with members of the UNC-CH Board of Trustees, who vote on and approve faculty tenure, on Tuesday afternoon.
The board has not offered Hannah-Jones, a Black woman, tenure for the position, which previous Knight Chairs at UNC-CH have received.
UNC-CH Vice Chancellor of Communications Joel Curran confirmed that the university has been contacted by attorneys representing Hannah-Jones.
…
Dean Susan King of the journalism school told The News & Observer on Tuesday evening that she has not heard from the administration about this development but, if true, UNC needs the board’s leadership now more than ever.
“They have the reputation of UNC in their hands, and I do believe they are honorable people,” King said. “I look forward to their vote.”
For weeks, professional journalists, scholars and UNC-CH faculty, alumni and students have defended Hannah-Jones and demanded that the board grant her tenure immediately. The national controversy stems from criticism that race, politics and Hannah-Jones’s work on The 1619 Project are behind the board’s decisions. The project, which was published in The New York Times, explores the legacy and history of Black Americans and slavery.
“[Hannah-Jones] is saying she needs an answer,” said Mimi Chapman, chair of the UNC-CH faculty. “We all want an answer, and I think we’re right there with her.”
Chapman published an open letter over the weekend asking university employees, students and supporters to press trustees to approve tenure for Hannah-Jones. She said it’s clear the campus is behind Hannah-Jones and there has been an outpouring of people from different departments willing to step up and make public statements.
“All of these statements are being sent to the board of trustees so they have to see the breadth of this commitment,” Chapman said.
A number of Black faculty and staff have said they are considering leaving the university because they feel undervalued on campus, particularly after this case. Student Body President Lamar Richards is discouraging potential students and professors of color from coming to UNC-CH because of the environment….
The Black Student Movement organized a “solidarity demonstration” for Friday afternoon to protest the board’s decision. In its Twitter thread announcing the protest, the Black Student Movement said this is “another example of UNC not supporting their Black students and staff” and “showing their commitment to white supremacy.”
Hannah-Jones’s attorneys threatened a federal lawsuit in late May, saying UNC-CH “unlawfully discriminated against Hannah-Jones based on the content of her journalism and scholarship and because of her race.”
While no lawsuit has been filed, UNC-Chapel Hill officials and Hannah-Jones’s legal team have been directly discussing her employment at the university.
The UNC-CH board can meet at any time to officially discuss and vote on Hannah-Jones’s tenure appointment. Despite public pressure and a legal threat, the board has not called a special meeting. Its next meeting is scheduled for July 14 and 15 in Chapel Hill, after Hannah-Jones was scheduled to start her job….
Republicans Block Major Voting Rights Bill as Democrats Vow to Continue Fight
Senate Republicans blocked the sweeping voter protection bill, the For the People Act, from advancing Tuesday, in a major but expected blow to Democrats and to voting rights. The move comes amid a crackdown on voting rights in Republican-led states and as calls mount to abolish the filibuster so Democrats can circumvent Republican stonewalling….
…
President Biden and Democrats have vowed to keep fighting to protect voting rights at the federal level.
…
Rights Groups Sound Alarm as Nicaragua’s Gov’t Escalates Crackdown on Opposition
The U.N. and other rights groups are condemning the government of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega over its mounting crackdown on opposition ahead of the November election. At least 15 people have been arrested this month, including five presidential candidates. Ortega is widely expected to run for a fourth presidential term. Meanwhile, Mexico and Argentina have withdrawn their ambassadors to Nicaragua. The Biden administration also imposed new sanctions on four Nicaraguan officials and Ortega allies earlier this month….
…
U.S. Gov’t Seizes PressTV[dot]com and Other Websites Linked to Iran
The United States government has seized dozens of website domains linked to Iran, including state-owned PressTV[dot]com, a popular English-language news site. They also shut down Yemeni and Iraqi channels….
…
Catalan Separatist Leaders Released After Spanish Pardon
In Spain, a group of Catalan separatist leaders have been released from prison a day after they were pardoned. In 2017, the Spanish central government cracked down on the separatists following an independence referendum and the Catalan Parliament’s declaration of independence. Some of the freed leaders will still face a ban on holding public office. Political leaders who fled Spain are not included in the pardon. This is Pere Aragonès, president of the Government of Catalonia.
Pere Aragonès: “The decision taken today by the Spanish government is a recognition that the sentences were unjust. … It is time for amnesty and the right to self-determination.”
…
Interior Dept. to Probe Impact of Historic Boarding Schools for Native American Children
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced Tuesday her agency will investigate the impact of government-run schools that sought to force the assimilation of Indigenous children. The Interior Department, which oversaw the schools, will also seek to identify burial sites at the schools. Last month, the remains of 215 Indigenous children were discovered at one such school in Canada. This is Secretary Haaland.
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland: “I come from ancestors who endured the horrors of Indian boarding school assimilation policies carried out by the same department that I now lead, the same agency that tried to eradicate our culture, our language, our spiritual practices and our people. To address the intergenerational impact of Indian boarding schools and to promote spiritual and emotional healing in our communities, we must shed light on the unspoken traumas of the past.”
…
Eric Adams Leads in NYC Mayoral Race; Socialist India Walton Set to Become Buffalo’s 1st Woman Mayor
New Yorkers voted in the city’s highly anticipated primary election Tuesday. In the heated mayoral race, Brooklyn borough president and former New York police officer Eric Adams is leading with over 31% of the vote, but it will likely take several weeks to announce a winner with the new ranked-choice voting system. Civil rights attorney Maya Wiley is currently in second place with 22% of the vote, followed closely by former Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia. 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang has conceded after receiving less than 12% of the tallied vote. Journalist Ross Barkan, who has written critically about Adams and other candidates, said he and other reporters were barred from Adams’s election night party. Talk show host Curtis Sliwa has won the Republican nomination.
Meanwhile, in a stunning upset in Buffalo, New York, India Walton has claimed victory over four-term mayor Byron Brown in the Democratic primary. Politico reports Walton is poised to become the first socialist mayor of a large U.S. city in 60 years. Walton will also be Buffalo’s first woman mayor if she wins the general election in November.
On 10 March 1987, a 37-year-old private investigator named Daniel Morgan was found dead in a south London pub car park with an axe embedded in his head. Despite the arrests of several men, the initial investigation did not lead to any charges and the murder has gone unsolved amid allegations of police corruption.
The Metropolitan police have previously accepted that corrupt officers shielded the killers. But a new panel inquiry concluded last week that the crime was probably “solvable” had it not been undermined. The force was described as “institutionally corrupt” and its commissioner, Cressida Dick, personally censured for obstruction by an independent inquiry.
The former Guardian reporter Duncan Campbell has been following the case for decades. He describes a world where journalists, private investigators and police would socialise together in the same pubs and swap information, often for money. Daniel’s brother, Alistair Morgan, tells Anushka that after decades of unwavering perseverance, he has forced the Met to confront its failings – but despite having his own strong suspicions, he does not expect justice to ever be done.
I hurt my back and have had to limit my time at the keyboard. Projects that earn money take precedence, so I’ve been somewhat absent on this thread. Many thanks to SC and others who are always there to keep us informed.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that a California regulation allowing union organizers to recruit agricultural workers at their workplaces violated the constitutional rights of their employers.
The vote was 6 to 3, with the court’s three liberal members in dissent.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for the majority, wrote that “the access regulation grants labor organizations a right to invade the growers’ property.” That meant, he wrote, that it was a taking of private property without just compensation.
[…]
The state regulation, issued in 1975 and unique in the nation, allows union organizers to meet with agricultural workers at work sites in the hour before and after work and during lunch breaks for as many as 120 days a year. The regulation’s drafters said this was the only practical way to give farmworkers, who can be nomadic and poorly educated, a realistic chance to consider joining a union.
The court has in recent years dealt blows to public unions and limited the ability of workers to band together to take legal action over workplace issues. At the same time, the court has been protective of property rights….
The share of Covid-19 infections caused by the Delta variant of the coronavirus has doubled in Germany in a week and is likely to gain more traction over other variants, the Robert Koch Institute public health agency said.
A whole genome sequencing analysis shows the strain accounting for 15% of infections, the Institute said, adding that “the proportion of variant B.1.617.2 (Delta) continues to increase and the proportion of this VOC (variant of concern) doubled within one week.” “The current distribution of the variants in Germany shows that it can be expected that the VOC B.1.617.2 can be expected to prevail over the other variants,” it added, Reuters reports. Chancellor Angela Merkel said she would like other European countries to require people entering them from countries where there are high levels of the Delta variant, like Britain, to go into quarantine, as is the case in Germany.
Of all the lines Mitch McConnell could take on his party’s voter-suppression campaign, pretending it doesn’t exist is the worst.
As Senate Democrats advanced the For the People Act, Republican opponents turned to a series of rather predictable talking points. GOP critics said, for example, that the effort represented a “federal power-grab,” which made a degree of sense since the legislation would curtail state-level schemes to undermine democracy. Other Republicans complained that the bill is “partisan,” which was really just a lazy way of saying GOP politicians don’t like it.
But the most unnerving talking point came, once again, from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
McConnell accused bill proponents of misconstruing election laws in Georgia and other states to justify a federal proposal he described as unnecessary. “The biggest lie being told in American politics in recent weeks has been that the states are involved in a systematic effort to suppress the vote,” the Kentucky Republican said Tuesday.
If this sounds at all familiar, it’s because McConnell pushed the same line in March, telling reporters, “States are not engaging in trying to suppress voters whatsoever.”
All things considered, the word “gaslighting” is probably used a bit too much in our political discourse, but for the Senate GOP leader to justify the Republican Party’s voter-suppression initiative by denying its existence is a classic example of the phenomenon. […]
Georgia is hardly the only state that’s made it harder to vote this year. Republican lawmakers have now enacted new voting restrictions in a total of 11 states — Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Montana, Utah and Wyoming.
[…] FiveThirtyEight reported that “at least 404 voting-restriction bills have now been introduced in 48 state legislatures.” Many of those proposals will go ignored, but plenty will not: FiveThirtyEight’s report highlighted 25 voter-suppression bills that have already become law this year — and there are still several dozen related measures pending in states where Republicans have some power.
Indeed, just yesterday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) called a special legislative session with the express goal of approving an odious new voter-suppression bill.
And yet, there was Mitch McConnell, telling reporters with a straight face yesterday, “The biggest lie being told in American politics in recent weeks has been that the states are involved in a systematic effort to suppress the vote,” despite the fact that Republicans in states nationwide are involved in a systematic effort to suppress the vote.
It’s rare to see a don’t-believe-your-lying-eyes moment this brazen.
Not so rare if you pay attention to any Republican politicians.
As GOP lawmakers rush to recreate Arizona’s sham audit in their home states, most Americans still have enough of a foot in reality to see the “fraudits” for exactly what they are: purely partisan disinformation campaigns.
A new Monmouth University poll found that 57% of Americans view the fraudits as “partisan efforts to undermine valid election results” based on what they’ve heard about the reviews. Only a third of respondents viewed the so-called audits as legitimate efforts to identify potential voting irregularities. Twice as many Americans also say the reviews will weaken U.S. democracy versus strengthening it, 40%-20%, while about a third of the public believes they will have little impact.
The results provide at least some solace amid polls showing that a substantial majority of Republicans still baselessly believe the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. A Morning Consult/Politico poll released last week also found that a bare majority (51%) of Republicans think the partisan-led reviews will somehow overturn the certified results of the 2020 election. Meanwhile, just 16% of Democrats and 24% of independent voters said they believed the reviews could overturn the 2020 results.
[…]
An investigation into the Michigan election by state Republican lawmakers has concluded that there is no evidence of widespread fraud and dismissed the need for an Arizona-style forensic audit of the results.
[…]
The Michigan Republican report released on Wednesday followed 28 hours of legislative hearings starring local and national pro-Trump conspiracy theorists such as […] Rudy Giuliani. The report labeled many of their claims “ludicrous” and called on the state Democratic attorney general to open investigations into those who may have profited from making false claims.
The report was authored by the Republican-controlled senate oversight committee and it said it found no evidence of dead voters, no precincts with 100% turnout and no evidence of a Detroit ballot dump that benefited Biden, as GOP activists have claimed occurred.
[…]
In the report, state senator Ed McBroom took aim at the pro-Trump activists who “who have pushed demonstrably false theories for their own personal gain”.
“If you are profiting by making false claims, that’s pretty much the definition of fraud,” McBroom said.
The office of Michigan’s attorney general, Dana Nessel, said on Wednesday that it’s still reviewing the report.
Despite that the report rebukes the conspiracy theories, the investigation found glaring issues that must be addressed in state election law, and the party is still pushing forward with a package of 39 controversial voting restrictions that it plans to ram through using a constitutional loophole that can bypass the veto of the Democrat governor, Gretchen Whitmer.
[…]
The day after Senate Republicans unanimously rejected even the idea of talking about free and fair elections, the bipartisan group of senators who say they are working on an infrastructure deal continues to talk. Those two issues—the filibuster on the For the People Act and infrastructure negotiations—are inextricably linked. There are a handful of moderate Democrats in that gang who are squishy on filibuster reform, so what happens in those negotiations will affect how they view moving forward on the rest of President Biden’s legislative agenda.
Reports are mixed as to whether the group is getting anywhere. The Wall Street Journal says “negotiators see progress.” That’s ahead of a meeting between Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi with White House officials on moving forward. […] lawmakers in the group “said they had largely agreed on how to spend the proposed $973 billion over five years, including $579 billion in spending above expected federal levels, but were still working on how to offset the cost.” That, by the way, has been the point of disagreement for three months of bipartisan negotiations, first between Biden and West Virginia Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, and now this group. [Aiyiyiiyi, more of the same1]
[…] West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin says it has to happen before recessing for the 4th of July break. If not, “it makes it difficult” he said, adding “I think we all feel that very strongly that we have to have a deal before we leave tomorrow.” […] The White House is providing no deadlines, but press secretary Jen Psaki said, “We’re certainly hoping to make progress over the next couple of days.” She also made a point of reiterating where the White House was unwilling to go—pretty brilliantly, too.
Psaki reiterates to @Phil_Mattingly that WH opposes fees on Electric Vehicles to pay for infrastructure: “We are not for a Ford-F150 tax. I’m not sure why others are”
[Ha!]
If by some miracle an agreement can be reached by this group, it has absolutely no guarantee of passing, even though there are 11 Republicans in the group: There’s no iron-clad pact among them that they’ll stick with it. Fellow Republicans are putting the onus on Biden. […]
Sen. Elizabeth Warren told reporters Wednesday that she won’t back the plan […] unless the threat of climate change is dealt with seriously.
[…] The bulk of Biden’s plan is going to have to pass via budget reconciliation, which doesn’t require Republican votes. It’s either that or get rid of the filibuster, and at this point it looks like budget reconciliation is a better bet. That’s in part because of movement from Manchin. He’s been the biggest obstacle, saying early on that he wouldn’t agree to it unless there was bipartisan negotiation on infrastructure. He got that, and he’s seen its limits. That might be why he’s budged a bit.
“I’ve come to the knowledge, basically, that budget reconciliation is for reconciling budgets. So it’s money matters,” Manchin told NBC News. He said he now supports funding for “human infrastructure”—the investments in child care, community college, and paid leave in Biden’s plan—as well as raising tax revenues to pay for it. […] “I think there are some adjustments that need to be made.”
That’s actually pretty significant movement from Manchin, and bodes well for the budget reconciliation path Schumer and Sen. Bernie Sanders have kicked off. Manchin had to be Manchin and question the $6 trillion price tag Sanders is talking about for his package, but he has moved. So if you’re looking for a ray of hope after Tuesday’s For the People Act filibuster, there’s at least one.
The report was authored by the Republican-controlled senate oversight committee and it said it found no evidence of dead voters, no precincts with 100% turnout and no evidence of a Detroit ballot dump that benefited Biden, as GOP activists have claimed occurred.
Bad:
[…] the party is still pushing forward with a package of 39 controversial voting restrictions that it plans to ram through using a constitutional loophole that can bypass the veto of the Democrat governor, Gretchen Whitmer.
Even as Republican-led states erect barriers to the ballot box across the country, more than half of U.S. states have locked in laws since the 2020 election that make voting more accessible […]
Many of these laws are the result of steps lawmakers took last year to make voting safer and easier amid the pandemic, efforts that ultimately yielded record voter participation. The laws typically streamlined registering to vote while also expanding access to early voting and voting by mail. But other laws enabled people with past felony convictions to vote and offered more options to voters with disabilities.
Virginia also enacted a law requiring locales to get preapproval or feedback to any changes they plan to make to local voting ordinances, an attempt to counteract the Supreme Court’s gutting of the Voting Right Act in 2013. [Good idea!]
[…] The divide between the changes taking place in liberal- versus conservative-leaning states was highlighted in a recent report from VRL called, “A Tale of Two Democracies: How the 2021 Wave of State Voting Laws Created a New American Fault Line.”
“There’s a fault line that’s developing between states working to strengthen our democracy and states actively restricting it,” Liz Avore, vice president for law and policy at VRL, told the Post. “It is stark when you look at the map … That division is really remarkable.”
That said, some positive changes have emerged in a handful of GOP-led states, including Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Montana. In some cases, states have increased ballot drop-off locations or expanded early vote hours; in others, they have opened eligibility to people with felony convictions or made voting easier for people with disabilities.
Kentucky’s Republican Secretary of State Michael Adams has made a particularly unusual case, saying his party needs to “stop being scared of voters.”
“Let them vote, and go out and make the case,” Adams said. “I want Republicans to succeed. I think it’s an unforced error to shoot themselves in the foot in these states by shrinking access. You don’t need to do that.”
That is just truly novel thinking for a Republican these days—and dare we say it, pro-democracy. […]
President Biden on Wednesday outlined steps the executive branch is taking to curb crime at a time when cities are seeing spikes in homicides, highlighting ways in which money from his signature economic relief bill can be repurposed to reduce violence.
“For folks at home, the American Rescue Plan, which is a once in a generation investment to reduce violence in America. I’m proud of it. It means more police officers, more nurses, more counselors, more social workers, more community violence interrupters to help resolve issues before they escalate into crimes,” Biden said in remarks from the State Dining Room.
“It means we go after the people who flood our streets with guns, and the bad actors who decide to use them to further terrorize the communities,” he added. “It means saving lives, and Congress should in no way take away this funding that has already been appropriated.” [Biden made the point that 5% of gun dealers account for 90% of the weapons used in crimes.]
Biden reiterated his call for Congress to pass an expansion of background checks for firearm purchases and a federal ban on assault weapons to curb gun violence, despite little progress on those policies in a gridlocked Washington.
[…] Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland also met with a group of local law enforcement officials, community leaders and other White House officials to discuss their efforts, a sit-down that lasted longer than expected Wednesday afternoon ahead of Biden’s speech.
Biden is looking to distance himself from calls by some progressives to “defund the police” while also drawing a contrast with former President Trump’s divisive and inflammatory rhetoric that included chastising protesters while framing himself as a tough-on-crime candidate.
Biden portrayed himself as a supporter of law enforcement […] “This is not a time to turn our backs on law enforcement or our communities,” he said, as he criticized efforts to reclaim money allocated to states in the American Rescue Plan.
[…] It is too soon to tell whether the spike in violent crime plaguing a number of cities is a pandemic-spurred temporary increase or the beginning of a larger trend.
“Crime historically rises during the summer and as we emerge from this pandemic, with the country opening back up again, the traditional summer spike may even be more pronounced than it traditionally would be,” Biden said Wednesday.
Many of the initiatives Biden announced Wednesday involved encouraging jurisdictions to use billions of dollars in funds allocated to state and local governments through the American Rescue Plan to invest in police departments and community programs to cut down on violence and offer alternatives for residents in at-risk communities.
[…] The administration is also collaborating with 15 jurisdictions that have seen high rates of gun crime to bolster community violence intervention programs. Among the partner locales are Chicago, Atlanta, Austin, Baltimore, Baton Rouge, Los Angeles, Detroit and St. Louis.
The Department of Justice separately announced the creation of multi-jurisdictional “firearms trafficking strike forces” to reduce the trafficking of guns to high-crime areas like New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and the Bay Area.
[…] When asked how politics factored into the decision to prioritize efforts against crime earlier Wednesday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki described the new strategy as a continuation of Biden’s efforts thus far to address gun violence and empower local police.
“The president has been very consistent in his views over decades. He has never been for defunding the police. He has always been a supporter of ensuring that local community policing is funded and adequately supported by the federal government. He has also been a longtime advocate for decades and leader on addressing gun violence. So, this is actually the continuity of his leadership on these issues over decades,” Psaki said. “This is just an opportunity to put additional meat on the bones.”
Wednesday’s plan built on previous efforts from the Biden administration targeted specifically at gun violence. The Department of Justice in April announced new rules to crackdown on modified pistols and so-called “ghost guns,” which pose problems for law enforcement because they do not have serial numbers or are assembled piece-by-piece to avoid tracking. […]
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Army Gen. Mark Milley on Wednesday said it was important for service members to understand critical race theory, shooting down assertions by Republican lawmakers that studying the topic was harmful to military cohesion.
In an impromptu and passionate statement, Milley at a House Armed Service Committee hearing rejected the assertion that critical race theory and other such teaching could be damaging, telling lawmakers that “a lot of us have to get much smarter on whatever the theory is.”
“I do think it’s important, actually, for those of us in uniform to be open-minded and be widely read … and it is important that we train and we understand,” Milley said. “I want to understand white rage, and I’m white.”
“What is it that caused thousands of people to assault this building and try to overturn the Constitution of the United States of America? What caused that? I want to find that out. I want to maintain an open mind here, and I do want to analyze it. … It is important that the leaders now and in the future do understand it.” […]
“I’ve read Mao Zedong. I’ve read Karl Marx. I’ve read Lenin,” Miley said during the hearing. “That doesn’t make me a communist. So what is wrong with understanding, having some situational understanding about the country from which we are here to defend?”
“I personally find it offensive that we are accusing the United States military, our general officers, our noncommissioned officers, of being ‘woke’ or something else because we are studying some theories that are out there,” he added.
Milley was responding to several lines of questioning earlier in the hearing, including from Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who claimed he had been told by numerous unnamed service members that a militarywide “stand-down” — meant to address extremism in the ranks earlier this year — had “impaired group cohesion.”
Gaetz also claimed that Bishop Garrison, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s senior adviser for human capital, diversity, equity and inclusion, was a “critical race theorist.”
“Could you enlighten us as to what advice Mr. Garrison has given you and are you concerned that while you testified publicly to our committee that the department doesn’t embrace critical race theory, you have hired someone who is precisely a critical race theorist?” Gaetz asked Austin.
Austin shot back, “This is the first I’d ever heard Mr. Garrison being described as a critical race theorist, so this is new.”
That was followed by Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.), a National Guard colonel and Green Beret, criticizing the United States Military Academy at West Point for having cadets learn and discuss critical race theory in class, which he claimed was “divisive.”
Waltz pointed to a voluntary seminar at West Point on “understanding whiteness and white rage.”
Milley noted that a summit on critical race theory was held at Harvard Law School “years ago” and that “it proposed that there were laws in the United States, antebellum laws prior to the Civil War, that led to a power differential with African Americans, [who] were [considered] three-quarters of a human being when this country was formed.”
“Then we had a civil war and the Emancipation Proclamation to change it, and then we brought it up to the Civil Rights Act in 1964. It took another 100 years to change that. So, look, I do want to know. … It matters to our military and the discipline and cohesion of this military,” he said.
[…] In a May 10 Senate Armed Service Committee hearing, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) claimed without any concrete evidence that there was “plummeting morale, growing mistrust between the races and sexes” in the military due to “woke ideology.”
[…] Austin pushed back at Gaetz, calling his claims that he had hired a critical race theorist “spurious.”
“I trust my leadership from top to bottom that they will give me fair and balanced and unvarnished input,” Austin said. […]
Hooray for anybody who stands up against Gaetz’s stupidity.
It can be difficult sometimes, with so much going on, to know what’s the most important story in America. Is it the GOP’s conversion into a fundamentally un-American insurgency willing to destroy democracy to retain power? Is it the Biden administration’s efforts to pass bills on voting rights and infrastructure and various and sundry other things? Is it something else?
Luckily, CNN employs Chris Cillizza, who is able to distill it all down to the most important paragraph in all the news, the one he says we must read today:
Here’s the paragraph you need to read today:
It’s that simple. This is the paragraph you need to read today, says Cillizza. If you have time to read other paragraphs, that’s great for you, we’re all very impressed, but if you only have a minute, this is the one you need to read today. It is this paragraph:
“With each passing day away from Washington, former President Donald Trump’s grievances continue unabated. And those complaints appear to be driving away two of the people who were closest to him during his White House tenure: his daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law, Jared Kushner.”
Oh no. According to CNN’s sources, Ivanka and Jared are on the outs with the grand dipshit. That is the most important news paragraph, according to Chris Cillizza, News Guy.
But despite how that is the most important news of all the news, we still think Cillizza may be misinterpreting it slightly. You see, he seems to be taking at face value a CNN story sourced to “12 former Trump White House officials, former administration officials, family friends, acquaintances and members of Trump’s team,” what says Ivanka and Jared don’t like Daddy anymore because he whines and bitches a lot about the stolen election and is unable to be present, because he’s obsessed with relitigating the past. Which … fine. That’s probably annoying. If he were our father, we’d have let him out on the side of the road years ago.[…]
Cillizza says, “If you’re surprised by any of that, well, you haven’t been paying attention.” Cillizza says, “the attempted ghosting of the former President by his eldest daughter and son-in-law is the most utterly predictable thing imaginable.” Wonkette would gently suggest that Cillizza may be missing the possibility that the real story here is that Ivanka and Jared are leaking stories about themselves allegedly ghosting their one true father, in a pathetic attempt to salvage their eternally destroyed image.
Cillizza notes, correctly:
Yes, they are related to Donald Trump — and, yes, they want all the benefits and access that comes with that. (That’s always been true, but especially since Trump was elected.) At the same time, they want to preserve their access to, for lack of a better word, high society. Jared and Ivanka still want to be liked by the intelligentsia. They want to have access to important places and travel in the circles of the wealthy and well-connected.
Absolutely. They want to be accepted back into polite society. They want to go to cool parties in New York like they used to do. Never ever going to fuckin’ happen.
Cillizza goes through a bunch of examples of Ivanka and Jared either saying outright or leaking to the press, during the Trump administration, that they were moderating Daddy’s worst instincts and being the calm, reasonable voices in the room. He also notes times they tried to disappear when things got REALLY bad. Then he continues:
It’s in keeping with that […] approach that the duo is now trying to create some space between themselves and the former President as he continues to go further and further down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories about election fraud in the 2020 campaign.
If the CNN story is correct, it sounds like Javanka really may not be around much anymore. Of course the CNN story also says those fuckers are literally on their way to Trump’s Bedminster trash palace as we speak, so they haven’t literally vanished. The rest of it is gossip, and we just don’t care […]
But yes, Chris Cillizza, we see that Ivanka and Jared may be planting stories in the press trying to put some distance between their images and that of the world’s greatest loser. How any of this is “the paragraph we need to read today” is beyond us.
We sure are glad CNN still pays that guy a big salary, though. If they didn’t, we might not have even read that paragraph.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday limited the ability of union organizers to enter the private property of growers in order to reach farmworkers in California. In a 6-3 decision, the court said unions violate the Constitution when they enter a grower’s private property without paying.
[…] The nation’s public schools have no general power to punish students for what they say off campus, the Supreme Court said Wednesday. The 8-1 ruling broadened First Amendment protections in an era when school children are in nearly constant contact with one another through social media and text messages.
The wages earned by those responsible for controlling the nation’s deadliest wildfires are ‘ridiculously low’ President Joe Biden said Tuesday. Before a meeting with homeland security and federal emergency management officials, the president told reporters he promised to end the $13 an hour salary paid to federal firefighters.
The latest reporting on Trump pressing federal agencies to go after comedy shows is very easy to believe.
The revelations last week were jarring: materials brought to public light from the House Oversight Committee showed Donald Trump and his White House team, leaning on the Justice Department late last year to help undermine the 2020 presidential election. The revelations served as a reminder that the former president saw federal agencies as extensions of his political machine, to be used against perceived enemies.
But related revelations continue to come to the fore. The Daily Beast reported yesterday:
According to two people familiar with the matter, Trump asked advisers and lawyers in early 2019 about what the Federal Communications Commission, the court system, and — most confusingly to some Trump lieutenants — the Department of Justice could do to probe or mitigate SNL, Jimmy Kimmel, and other late-night comedy mischief-makers.
As unsettling as a report like this is, it’s not the least bit surprising.
As regular readers may recall, during his presidential transition period, Trump lashed out at “Saturday Night Live,” condemning it as “biased,” and suggesting he and his team should be given “equal time.” In 2018, the Republican did it again, blasting the NBC comedy show as a “spin machine,” and suggesting that the broadcasts may not be “legal.”
In February 2019, Trump upped the ante, raising the prospect of “retribution” against comedy shows. A month later, the then-president started referring to specific levers of federal power he’d consider using to punish comedy programs that hurt his feelings.
It’s what makes this new reporting so easy to believe: it suggests Trump was doing in private exactly what he was doing in public.
Yesterday, the former president went to the trouble of denying The Daily Beast report — though as the outlet added, Trump also confirmed, in the same statement, “that he believes the show was engaging in ‘illegal’ activity by making fun of him.” […]
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trollssays
Joy Reid had asshole Christopher Rufo on her show. If a video is posted, I’ll post it in the morning. Ouch, she left marks…
The antivirus software entrepreneur John McAfee has been found dead in his cell in Spain from an apparent suicide, hours after the country’s highest court approved his extradition to the United States, where he was wanted on tax-related criminal charges that carry a prison sentence of up to 30 years.
Catalonia’s regional police force, the Mossos d’Esquadra, confirmed a report in El País that McAfee, 75, had been found dead in the Brians 2 prison near Barcelona, late on Wednesday.
In a statement, the Catalan justice department said that prison officers and medics had tried to save the life of a 75-year-old man but had been unsuccessful.
“Judicial staff have been dispatched to the prison and are investigating the causes of death,” the statement said, adding: “Everything points to death by suicide.”
McAfee’s lawyer told the Reuters news agency on Wednesday evening that McAfee had apparently hanged himself in his prison cell.
McAfee, the creator of the McAfee virus software, was arrested last October at Barcelona’s international airport as he was about to board a flight to Istanbul.
The arrest of the entrepreneur came a day after authorities had made public a US indictment stemming from alleged tax offenses. Tennessee prosecutors had charged McAfee with evading taxes after failing to report income made from promoting cryptocurrencies while he did consultancy work, as well as income from speaking engagements and selling the rights to his life story for a documentary.
On Wednesday, Spain’s highest court had approved McAfee’s extradition to the United States, although the decision could be appealed and the extradition would have had to be approved by the Spanish cabinet.
…
McAfee’s personal life often drew as much interest as his professional achievements. He twice made long-shot runs for the US presidency and was a participant in Libertarian party presidential debates in 2016. He dabbled in yoga, ultra-light aircraft and producing herbal medications.
He frequently touted conspiracy theories on social media, and became the subject of frenzied media scrutiny following the unsolved 2012 murder of a neighbor in Belize.
When the police found him living with a 17-year-old girl and discovered a large arsenal of weapons in his home in the Central American country, McAfee disappeared on a month-long flight that drew breathless media coverage. McAfee said he knew nothing about the murder, but was worried he might have been the attacker’s intended target.
The dead neighbor’s family later filed a wrongful death suit against McAfee and last year a court in Florida ruled against him, ordering him to pay the family more than $25m.
In 2015, McAfee was arrested in the US for driving under the influence and possession of a gun while under the influence.
In July 2019, he was released from detention in the Dominican Republic after he and five others were suspected of traveling on a yacht carrying high-calibre weapons, ammunition and military-style gear, officials in the Caribbean country said at the time.
In March, he was charged in a Manhattan federal court over a pump and dump scheme involving cryptocurrencies he was promoting to his large social media following.
In a hearing held via video link earlier this month in Spain, McAfee had argued that the charges against him were politically motivated and said he would spend the rest of his life in prison if he was returned to the US.
…
Conspiracy theorists have already seized on McAfee’s death, editing his Wikipedia page to state he was murdered….
Hours after his death, a post featuring the letter Q was shared to McAfee’s Instagram account. The image is probably a reference to QAnon – the baseless conspiracy theory that there exists a secret world order of satanic pedophiles being battled in secret by Donald Trump.
Across Hong Kong on Thursday morning the queues stretched for hundreds of metres, wrapping around corner after corner. Starting before dawn, crowds in the city of 7.5 million people lined up for hours to buy the final print edition of the Apple Daily newspaper, forced to close by authorities which had accused it of national security offences.
Normally selling 80,000 copies a day, they printed a million. It was in such hot demand that by mid morning Hongkongers were crowdsourcing an online spreadsheet of convenience stores that still had copies for sale.
“Hong Kongers bid a painful farewell in the rain: ‘We support Apple Daily’,” read the final front page headline. The half page photo showed the crowds of supporters who had gathered outside the building the night before, leaving messages of thanks on the front gate, and waving up to the staff gathered at the windows and balconies, shining their torch lights.
Its founder and owner has been in jail since December, its chief executive and editor-in-chief since last Thursday, and lead editorial writer for less than 24 hours. All were charged with foreign collusion under a national security law which international governments and rights groups say is being wielded to crush dissent.
After police raided the newsroom last week and the security secretary froze the paper’s assets and accounts, Apple Daily’s parent company, Next Digital Media, had no choice. Unable to pay staff or operating costs, it announced the website, app and social media accounts would shut down on midnight Wednesday and the final newspaper would hit the stands on Thursday.
…
On Thursday people shared videos of the long queues, and photos of the copies they’d obtained. Protest art spread across social media, amid sadness and anger at the closure….
Climate scientists are increasingly concerned that global heating will trigger tipping points in Earth’s natural systems, which will lead to widespread and possibly irrevocable disaster, unless action is taken urgently.
The impacts are likely to be much closer than most people realise, a a draft report from the world’s leading climate scientists suggests, and will fundamentally reshape life in the coming decades even if greenhouse gas emissions are brought under some control.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is preparing a landmark report to be published in stages this summer and next year. Most of the report will not be published in time for consideration by policymakers at Cop26, the UN climate talks taking place in November in Glasgow.
A draft of the IPCC report apparently from early this year was leaked to Agence France-Presse, which reported on its findings on Thursday. The draft warns of a series of thresholds beyond which recovery from climate breakdown may become impossible. It warns: “Life on Earth can recover from a drastic climate shift by evolving into new species and creating new ecosystems … humans cannot.”
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Previous work by the IPCC has been criticised for failing to take account of tipping points. The new report is set to contain the body’s strongest warnings yet on the subject.
…
Earlier models predicted that Earth-altering climate change was not likely before 2100. But the UN draft report says prolonged warming even beyond 1.5C could produce “progressively serious, centuries-long and, in some cases, irreversible consequences.”
Long famed for its spectacular fishing, sprawling coral reefs and literary residents such as Ernest Hemingway, the Florida Keys is now acknowledging a previously unthinkable reality: it faces being overwhelmed by the rising seas and not every home can be saved.
Following a grueling seven-hour public meeting on Monday, held in the appropriately named city of Marathon, officials agreed to push ahead with a plan to elevate streets throughout the Keys to keep them from perpetual flooding, while admitting they do not have the money to do so.
…
Once people are unable to secure mortgages and insurance for soaked homes, the Keys will cease to be a livable place long before it’s fully underwater, according to Harold Wanless, a geographer at the University of Miami. “People don’t have a concept of what sea level rise will do to them. They just can’t conceive it,” he said….
Here’s a link to the Guardian June 24 coronavirus world liveblog.
From their morning summary:
German chancellor Angela Merkel said this morning that Europe is “on thin ice” in its battle against the coronavirus, as the highly contagious delta variant threatens to undo progress made in reducing infections.
Merkel said the further response to the pandemic would be a main topic of discussion among European Union leaders at a meeting in Brussels on Thursday. “We need to remain vigilant,” Merkel added. “In particular the newly arising variants, especially now the Delta variant, are a warning for us to continue to be careful.”
Russia has reported 20,182 new Covid cases. That is the most confirmed in a single day since 24 January. The government coronavirus taskforce also confirmed 568 coronavirus-related deaths in the last 24 hours. 20 million people out of the country’s 114 million population have so far received a vaccine shot.
The US Food and Drug Administration will add a warning to the Covid vaccines produced by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna about rare cases of heart inflammation in adolescents and young adults, the agency announced on Wednesday….
Also:
Joe Biden has warned that the Delta variant Covid-19 strain is “more contagious, it’s deadlier, and it’s spreading quickly around the world” as he urged unvaccinated people to get the vaccine.
In a tweet Biden said the Delta variant, which could become the dominant strain in the US within two to three weeks, leaves “young, unvaccinated people more vulnerable than ever”….
Join us today for a roundtable conversation with three leading medieval scholars about the phenomenon of conspiracy theories in history.
Michael D. Bailey, professor of history at Iowa State University is one of the world’s leading scholars on the development of the idea of the Witches’ Sabbath, the verifiable hysterical historical panic about a gathering of diabolical witches joined together to dance with the devil himself in order to spread evil power, a nocturnal festival capable of destroying flora and fauna.
Miri Rubin, professor of history at Queen Mary University of London, and translator of the first Blood Libel accusation in England, speaks on her historical forte: the dangerous, long-lived, and utterly spurious assertion that Jews ritually murder a Christian child to celebrate Passover. Emerging in medieval England and flourishing throughout the whole of the premodern era, the Blood Libel was responsible for another form or murderous hysteria.
Sean Field, a specialist on religious life in medieval France, speaks about the creation of mystery around the Templars. This is a different kind of conspiracy theory, that develops later around a specific and very real event. King Philip IV of France accused the Templars of a laundry list of spiritual and corporeal crimes; almost all the accused were entirely innocent. Though there was much furor contemporaneously, there was no belief that the Templars were involved in some sort of international secret financial skullduggery. Instead that modern balderdash developed much later and sticks with us. Our conversation covers the appeal of conspiracy theories, how they gain traction, and how they might be handled. Though our discussion is based in history it has strong repercussions for the current political and cultural situation.
New podcast series Nixon at War, of which the first two full episodes are available – this is the first – “October Surprise”:
Get in and get those files. Blow the safe and get it. -President Nixon to aide H.R. Haldeman For President Richard Nixon, the publication of the Pentagon Papers, in June 1971, ought not to have mattered. The malfeasance and mendacity revealed in the Times, and soon in papers across the country, had all happened under previous administrations, from Truman to LBJ. In fact, Nixon’s national security advisor, Henry Kissinger, tells the president, “I’ve read this stuff, and we come out pretty well in it.” But Nixon cannot be mollified. It is not the contents of the Pentagon Papers that he’s worried about. It is the leaking of classified information that has stoked his fury, and his fear. For Richard Nixon has secrets of his own, secrets that if brought to light, could sink his presidency. What are these secrets? Here the story flashes back, to the late summer and early fall of 1968, when Richard Nixon secures his party’s nomination for the presidency and soon finds himself having to navigate the treacherous politics of the Vietnam War. His principal adversary? Not Hubert Humphrey, the other name on the ballot, but Lyndon Johnson, who has opted not to seek a second term, but remains a formidable player, waging a desperate battle to close out the war and salvage his tattered legacy.
Special guest Kimberly Springer joins us to talk about an infamous, dangerous faith healer and his two — two! — appearances on Oprah’s talk show. This episode contains, we’re sorry to say, detailed descriptions of sexual assault.
Britain recorded 16,703 new cases of Covid-19 on Thursday, marking the highest total since early February, according to government data.
There were also 21 deaths reported within 28 days of a positive test, up from 19 on Wednesday.
For context, unless the US has some random spike in cases today, this is likely to be several thousand more cases than in the US. The UK has a population of 67 million while the US’s is 328 million.
Shocking update to lumipuna’s #55 – Guardian world liveblog:
Finnish football fans returning from Russia after Euro 2020 matches have caused a spike in their country’s daily coronavirus cases, Finnish health authorities said on Thursday.
The Finnish national team suffered two defeats in St. Petersburg this month and nearly 100 infections have since been recorded at two border crossings, mostly among returning fans, authorities said.
The total of daily new cases has since risen from around 50 to over 100, according to official data.
“These are people who have been at the games. Clearly, it has spread surprisingly well there, considering that Finns have mostly interacted with each other but contracted the virus in just a few days,” Risto Pietikainen, chief physician for the hospital district covering the main crossing point, told Reuters. [This suggests it could be the Delta variant, but they don’t say.]
The Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare said almost 100 infections had been diagnosed among Finns who had traveled to St Petersburg and the number was likely to grow.
Mika Salminen, head of security at the health institute, said a majority of those who contracted Covid in St Petersburg were football fans.
SC @102, I was glad to see that Pelosi took the opportunity to say that she was saddened by the fact that she had to form that select committee. She laid the blame squarely where it belongs, on Republican senators who voted against the bipartisan commission.
Pelosi made the point that Democrats had given Republicans everything they wanted, including the makeup of the commission, the timing of the commission, etc. However, she would not let Republicans turn the commission into an investigation into Black Lives Matter. The commission’s job was supposed to be an investigation into the events of January 6 and what led to those events. January 6th, not Black Lives Matter.
One thing Chris Rufo is good at: talking over and talking around the interviewer. Then he claims that it is the interviewer’s fault because she won’t let him spew his talking points when he is actually refusing to answer the questions.
Joy Reid does reveal Chris Rufo for what he is, but it takes a sustained effort to do so.
“We conclude that respondent’s conduct immediately threatens the public interest and warrants interim suspension from the practice of law, pending further proceedings,” the state appeals court wrote.
If it seems like Republicans live in a different world these days, it’s because they do. The furor over critical race theory (CRT) is a great example. Conservative think tanks seized on a term used in a handful of high-level college courses, spent years honing a message that made it seem like American school children were taught that being white meant being intrinsically evil, packed that message up for both Republican candidates and right-wing media, and conducted a coordinated release that has disrupted school board meetings coast to coast and led to the passage of complete nonsense like Texas’ 1836 project. It also led to Matt Gaetz getting utterly blasted out of the water when he tried to suggest that the American military shouldn’t concern itself with racism. But don’t worry—when that incident gets shown on Fox, Gaetz will be the hero.
In the last five years, Fox News and other traditional conservative media had an opportunity. They could push away from the lies being spread by Donald Trump and move to a position where they defended conservative positions while becoming more truthful. They went the other way. Like Republicans at every level, they jumped on the conspiracy train, throwing in their lot with pundits who regularly undercut reality and encourage conspiracies that are extraordinarily corrosive to the nation.
If the way CRT appears to be sweeping over communities without any connection to reality seems odd, the rants of people like Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson are only the tip of a fascistic iceberg. Right-wing websites are filled with stories about the “woke apparatchiks” who dominate the U.S. military, the “psycho Marxists” behind American education, multiple articles about how Don Lemmon’s cookie jar shows that there’s no such thing as racism (yes, seriously), and explanations of how white people are the least racist people in the United States. If the level of vaccine resistance among Republicans seems hard to fathom, there are plenty of articles about the “horrific side effects” of COVID-19 vaccines—including how women are having miscarriages just from being near someone who was vaccinated.
But to really see what Republicans are inviting into their homes each day, here’s a clip from OAN in which a commentary happily calls for mass executions of Americans.
In less than one minute, One America News Network correspondent Pearson Sharp goes from a contention that the election was stolen to an insistence that staging such a “coup” would require “tens of thousands” of people, to a recommendation of a “very good solution”—executions. [video is available at the link]
At no point is there even a suggestion that the election might not have been stolen. Neither does he pause for a second to ponder how a conspiracy as large as the one he posits wasn’t easily revealed. And naturally, in reeling off a list of states where he contends that “audits” are sure to uncover problems, he ticks off Michigan despite the fact that a Republican-led commission there has concluded that it found no evidence of election fraud.
As might be expected, this particular little speech is being met with great excitement on right-wing social media and chat rooms. Just as on OAN, no one is questioning the idea that a massive unseen conspiracy denied Trump another chance to keep not delivering on vaccines, or any of the other things he promised. They’re moving on to celebrating the idea that OAN must be aware something big is coming. They’re excited about getting to see those mass executions. They’re hoping that they come soon, soon, soon. And they’re all speculating about the best—meaning the most painful and humiliating—ways to kill tens of thousands of their fellow Americans. Or maybe just skipping anything that formal and simply nuking the parts of the nation they don’t like.
This is where they live. This is what they’re stewing in. Both online and off, “conservatives” are being told that their countrymen are psycho commie traitors who deserve only death.
It’s also worth noting that one of those right-wing articles collected at The Righting (no direct link, by intent) celebrates Donald Trump’s greatest accomplishment as “taking a sledgehammer to the garbage bipartisan establishment.” These are not people who want to mend fences. They’re not interested in seeing the nation united. […]
lumipunasays
Re SC at 104:
The Finnish national team suffered two defeats in St. Petersburg this month and nearly 100 infections have since been recorded at two border crossings, mostly among returning fans, authorities said.
Leading with the most important detail :)
The total of daily new cases has since risen from around 50 to over 100, according to official data.
“These are people who have been at the games. Clearly, it has spread surprisingly well there, considering that Finns have mostly interacted with each other but contracted the virus in just a few days,” Risto Pietikainen, chief physician for the hospital district covering the main crossing point, told Reuters. [This suggests it could be the Delta variant, but they don’t say.]
I understand it’s too early to get the sequencing results on how many of these cases are delta, but some cases of the variant have been detected among the handful of infections that originated from Russia earlier this month. I also just learned that delta does already constitute a substantial (and growing) portion of the relatively few daily cases we have in Finland.
Now, there’s growing concern on Finnish media, and everyone up to prime minister is urging the returned football fans to isolate themselves (which is generally recommended for people entering from high risk countries) and get tested and re-tested after a few days. Authorities are trying to track people from travel bookings and border crossing logs.
There’s one small problem with regard to isolation and testing: This weekend is Midsummer, a major holiday. People will want to party and get drunk (though often it’s just with their own family) and retreat to the countryside (with poor testing access, especially during holidays).
In less than one minute, One America News Network correspondent Pearson Sharp goes from a contention that the election was stolen to an insistence that staging such a “coup” would require “tens of thousands” of people, to a recommendation of a “very good solution”—executions. [video is available at the link]
!!!!!!
Mark Sumner, who wrote the piece, adds in the comments:
It’s seriously tempting to believe that OAN, whose reporters include a number of former Sputnik employees, is nothing but a Russian propaganda effort that’s treating the First Amendment as a lever to crack open the nation. But hey, I’m not putting that in an article … unless I have proof.
That was the vibe I immediately got watching the clip. Honestly, the network increasingly has the feel of Russian state TV.
Brony @ #105, thanks for those links! I’d listened to the Dr. Phil episodes and a few others, but hadn’t yet heard those. Just listened to them while I cooked/cleaned. I think she’s my favorite guest.
A White House staffer and former Texas state representative are among those suing several participants of a “Trump Train” that allegedly harassed a Biden campaign bus last October in Texas, claiming in a lawsuit filed Thursday that the Trump supporters engaged in coordinated, illegal political intimidation in violation of the Ku Klux Klan Act.
The complaint was filed on behalf White House staffer, David Gins; former Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis; former Biden campaign volunteer Eric Cervini; and the driver of the Biden campaign bus, Timothy Holloway. The plaintiffs wrote in their complaint filed in the Western District of Texas that on October 30, the Trump supporters “terrorized and menaced the driver and passengers on the Biden-Harris Campaign’s bus” for at least 90 minutes, forcing the bus to slow to a crawl on a major highway while swerving in front of the bus to block its path.
“They played a madcap game of highway ‘chicken,’ coming within three to four inches of the bus,” the lawsuit alleges. “They tried to run the bus off the road,” referring to the defendants.
The complaint alleges that the defendants — named as Eliazar Cisneros, Hannah Ceh, Joeylynn Mesaros, Robert Mesaros, Dolores Park, and a Jane and John Doe — conspired beforehand to surround and block the bus in violation of the Ku Klux Klan Act, passed by Congress in 1871 to prohibit the obstruction of free and fair elections via the coordinated intimidation of voters. As a result of their actions, they claim, the campaign was forced to cancel its stops in San Marcos and Austin out of fear for their safety.
…
According to the complaint, Gins, Davis and Holloway were on the bus at the time and Cervini was in his own car escorting them. Biden and Harris were not on the bus that day.
The complaint also draws a line between the events of that day and the January 6 riot at the Capitol. The complaint notes that some of the individuals who were involved in planning the Trump Train incident on October 30 were also in Washington the day of the deadly insurrection. The complaint also notes members of the New Braunfels Trump Train were identified in media reports and on social media has “having taken part in the January 6, 2021 insurrection.”
It is not the first time the Klan Act has been invoked this year in connection with acts carried out by Trump supporters before and after the election. Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, filed a lawsuit against Trump in February accusing him of inciting the January 6 riot and violating a provision of the Ku Klux Klan Act that prohibits political violence and intimidation that could impede federal officials from performing their constitutional duties. Jason Miller, a spokesman for Trump, said the former President did not incite or work to incite riots at the Capitol.
The FBI opened an investigation after footage of the highway confrontation, filmed by onlookers and Trump Train members themselves, emerged that on social media. An official familiar with the matter said the incident remains under investigation.
The same plaintiffs are suing San Marcos, Texas, law enforcement officials and employees in a separate lawsuit alleging that they violated another section of the Klan Act by failing to prevent or respond to the harassment.
Davis, who at the time was serving as a Biden campaign surrogate, filmed the incident from the inside of the bus.
The previously unseen footage, which was provided exclusively to CNN, shows several vehicles with Trump flags surrounding the Biden campaign bus, cutting in front of it, and abruptly braking to slow the bus down as it traveled from San Antonio to Austin for a campaign event.
Davis’ recording also shows one truck with Trump flags — allegedly driven by Cisneros — sideswiping a campaign staffer’s SUV as they accompanied the bus. “That was me slamming that f—er….Hell yea,” Cisneros later posted on Facebook.
“Though I’ve been involved in many political campaigns for myself and others over the past couple of decades, I have never before experienced the threat or fear I felt when the ‘Trump Train’ surrounded our bus,” Davis told CNN. “I’m a part of this suit because I’m worried that this sort of dangerous behavior threatens to become the new normal if we don’t stop it.”
The plaintiffs are being represented by lawyers with the nonprofit advocacy organizations Protect Democracy and the Texas Civil Rights Project, as well as the law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP. Cameron Kistler, counsel for Protect Democracy and one of the lawyers on the case, is also an expert on the KKK Act, which he has called a “potentially powerful weapon for litigators seeking to protect the integrity of federal elections.”
The complaint alleges the defendants began conspiring almost immediately after the Biden campaign’s events schedule was released.
“As soon as the Biden-Harris Campaign made plans for the Bus Tour public, members of the Alamo City and New Braunfels Trump Trains began planning to intercept and intimidate the bus as it traveled through Bexar, Comal, Hays, and Travis Counties on October 30,” the complaint reads, pointing to Facebook posts by Alamo City Trump Train members beginning on October 28.
The lawsuit also points to an October 28 video posted on Twitter by then-President Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., encouraging Trump Train members to “get together and head down to McAllen and give Kamala Harris a nice Trump Train welcome.” President Trump later tweeted out a video of the highway skirmish with the caption, “I LOVE TEXAS!”
In several cases, the participants did not hide their involvement. Many of them — including one of the defendants in the lawsuit, Hannah Ceh — live-streamed the incident on social media using the hashtag #operationblockthebus, according to screenshots included in the complaint.
Another defendant, Dolores Park, streamed two live videos to Facebook, the complaint states, where she said, “This Biden bus is surrounded! Like seriously surrounded by Trump flags!” and “If my husband sees me like this, he’s going to kill me for driving like this!”
The plaintiffs argue that, in addition to violating the Ku Klux Klan Act, the Trump Train members engaged in civil assault, “intentionally and/or knowingly” threatening the plaintiffs “with imminent bodily injury by engaging in aggressive, dangerous, and reckless driving that put Plaintiffs and others on I-35 in physical danger.”…
President Joe Biden on Thursday announced a deal on a bipartisan infrastructure package but warned he would not sign it unless it was passed ‘in tandem’ with a separate budget reconciliation bill that invested in social infrastructure and other Democratic priorities.
Nearly 100 people were unaccounted for Thursday afternoon after a high-rise condo building partially collapsed near Miami Beach, leaving at least one person dead and 10 injured, officials said. Authorities got a call about the collapse at the 12-story building in Surfside, a town in Florida’s Miami-Dade County, around 1:30 a.m. ET, officials said during a morning news conference.
NY Times:
Search teams burrowing beneath the rubble of a collapsed condo building in the oceanfront town of Surfside, Fla., detected sounds of banging on Thursday, but no human voices, as an increasingly desperate search for survivors pressed into the evening.
The hunt for anyone who lived through the early-morning collapse shifted late on Thursday to an underground parking structure beneath an unstable heap of rubble just north of Miami Beach, where the 12-story building had once stood.
As families of the missing grew increasingly desperate for answers, search crews were trying to tunnel to different floors and find spaces where survivors might be, setting up cameras and sonar devices to detect any signs of life. At each turn, they were confronted by danger as pieces of the wreckage fell and a fire broke out.
“This process is slow and methodical,” Ray Jadallah, a Miami-Dade Fire Rescue assistant fire chief, said at a Thursday afternoon news conference. “Anytime we started breaching parts of the structure, we get rubble falling on us.”
Officials have accounted for 102 people who lived in the building, but 99 people remained unaccounted for by midafternoon, said Mayor Daniella Levine Cava of Miami-Dade County.
At least one person was killed in the collapse that survivors described as being “hit like a missile,” the authorities said. With so many people unaccounted for on Thursday, many more fatalities were feared.
Erika Benitez, a public-information officer for Miami-Dade Fire Rescue, said that officials hoped the noises they heard in the wreckage could be signs of life.
“This is what you’ll typically hear when doing search and rescue,” she said. “People who are trapped, and they may be too tired to speak. Falling asleep could also be a coping mechanism.”
Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida said after touring the wreckage of the 12-story Champlain Towers South that search-and-rescue teams had “made contact” with some people and still hoped to identify survivors caught in the dusty jumble of concrete and steel.
[…] Surveillance video from nearby buildings showed part of the residential tower shearing away in a cloud of dust, but the cause of the collapse was one of many urgent unanswered questions on Thursday. […]
[…] not all of the units may have been occupied by full-time residents.
Raysa Rodriguez, 59, who lives in the part of the building that remained standing, said she was awakened by what she thought was an earthquake. She then escaped down an emergency stairwell and off a second-floor balcony onto a rescue ladder.
“I lost a lot of friends,” said Ms. Rodriguez, who has owned a unit in the building since 2003. “They are not going to be able to find those people.”
[…] “Apparently, when the building came down, it pancaked. So there’s just not a lot of voids that they’re finding or seeing from the outside.” […]
Televangelist Jim Bakker has settled a lawsuit brought by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt (R) over his marketing of “silver solution” as a potential cure for the coronavirus.
Schmidt said in a statement that the televangelist and his Morningside Church Productions will pay roughly $156,000 in restitution over the marketing of the silver solution.
Schmidt sued Bakker in March 2020 for claiming that silver solution could cure the coronavirus on multiple episode of The Jim Bakker show.
[…] Morningside offered Silver Solution in exchange for a contribution of $80 to $125, according to court documents. Part of the contribution went to the solution, while the other was a charitable donation.
Bakker was ordered to refund $90,000 to customers who purchased silver solution between Feb. 12 and March 10, 2020.
Schmidt’s office said he’s already refunded a number of customers who purchased the product, which combined with the $90,000 brings the restitution to about $156,000.
The televangelist is also not allowed to sell or advertise the solution as “to diagnose, prevent, mitigate, treat or cure any disease or illness”
[…] New York Attorney General Letitia James sent a cease-and-desist letter to Bakker over a Feb. 12 episode of the show.
During the episode, a guest claimed that while the solution hadn’t been tested on COVID-19, the solution had eliminated other strains of the coronavirus in a span of 12 hours.
The Food and Drug Administration also warned the televangelist over his marketing of the solutions.
The religious leaders are still claiming that they didn’t do anything wrong:
The attorneys told the news outlet in a statement that Bakker and Morningside can “continue the important work of Morningside Church.” They added that the agreement contains “no findings whatsoever that our clients violated any laws or misled” consumers.
Attorneys general from 21 states have joined together to try to prevent the U.S. Postal Service from implementing Postmaster General Lewis DeJoy’s plans to further impede mail delivery. And yes, Louis DeJoy is still postmaster general. It’s really time something was done about that. The attorneys general are asking the U.S. Postal Regulatory Commission to reject DeJoy’s proposal.
The statement from the attorneys general—signed by two cities, a county, the District of Columbia, and attorneys general from states including New York and California—says that DeJoy’s changes to service will harm rural communities, could disenfranchise voters who have to rely on absentee voting, and reflects a “flawed philosophy that would prioritize the services it offers in competitive markets over those that it alone provides and on which countless Americans depend.” They say that purposely delaying mail delivery would violate the USPS’s statutory duty to provide “regular and effective” access to postal services for everyone, but particularly rural areas. They point out that the mail delays and USPS crisis experienced last year were found to be unlawful by four different federal judges.
“Regrettably, it appears that the Postal Service is poised to repeat many of these mistakes,” the statement of position reads. It details changes to “degrade service standards” DeJoy intends to enforce, like significantly slowing first-class mail. “[The Postal Service] seeks to implement these changes, despite never having restored service to its prior levels following the disastrous July 2020 initiatives and while the country still recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic and accompanying economic downturn.”
Apocalypse-pancake purveyor and disgraced mammal Jim Bakker is not feeling the Biden era. Bakker, who was convicted on 24 counts of fraud in 1989 over his role in the wide-ranging PTL scandal, thinks we’ve “slidden” backwards since those halcyon [Trump] days […]
[…] it’s really fucking easy to turn repentance into a vaudeville act without ever actually, you know, repenting.
That’s how conmen like Bakker […] keep their grift going ad nauseam.
BAKKER: “You realize this is coming, right? You realize where we are. You realize what America has done. Does it scare you that America would be so strong in turning their backs on God? It just drives me crazy to see this happen in our country. I felt like the last year we were doing pretty good in America. Of course, COVID hit and all that kind of stuff. … Do you think we have, in the last few months, since the election, America has, if we were in a religious forum, we would say backslid. America has slidden [sic] backwards more than in my entire lifetime, and I’m 81 years old.”
Eighty-one years old, huh? So that means he was born in 1940. I don’t know, I can think of at least one setback that happened in December of the very next year. And then there was that whole Vietnam kerfuffle. And Watergate. And the Great Recession.[…] Or maybe he’s down about 2021 because of this …
ABC News:
Jim Bakker and his southwestern Missouri church will pay restitution of $156,000 to settle a lawsuit that accuses the TV pastor of falsely claiming a health supplement could cure COVID-19.
[…] The settlement also prohibits Bakker and Morningside Church Productions Inc. from advertising or selling Silver Solution “to diagnose, prevent, mitigate, treat or cure any disease or illness.” Bakker, in the agreement, does not admit wrongdoing.
Ah, yes, Jim Bakker’s magic silver solution. Sure, you can be 100% healed through the power of prayer, but why not hedge your bets by coating your arteries with a heavy metal […] What would Jesus do? Oh, he’d almost certainly seize control of the FDA and immediately approve all of Jim Bakker’s quack cures.
I’m not quite sure what Joe Biden has done to earn the wrath of the official pancake vendor of the omniscient, immanent, ineffable godhead, but I doubt Bakker has many specifics. Not any that hold up under scrutiny, anyway. […]
Pretending he’s still in office, with a picture from 2019, Netanyahu posts “An emotional moment: Today, Honduras opens an official embassy in Jerusalem– the fourth embassy to open in our capital!”
In the real world, Honduran President [corrupt autocrat, murderer, drug trafficker] @JuanOrlandoH met with PM @NaftaliBennett today.
JOH is also a fake president who won’t leave, but in Honduras they can rig elections.
Right-wing pastor Hank Kunneman[, a self-proclaimed “prophet” who guaranteed that Trump would win the election and now adamantly refuses to admit that he was wrong,…] declared that fellow right-wing election conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell had been sent from Heaven to overturn the election and put former President Donald Trump[Wacko House occupant hair furor] back in the White House.
[… lots of gibberish…]
God speaks to me in dreams, Kunneman said. And I asked the president — he called me in the dream — and I asked him, I said, ‘How are things going President Trump?’ And he said to me, ‘Hank, it’s going to happen sooner than you think.’ And then he said these words; he said, ‘Tell the people that they have been and are aggressively working on this and we are going to see our nation restored to the people.’ And then the dream switched, and we were in some big meeting place, and we were singing the national anthem, and he had his hand over his heart, the military were there, and the patriots of America were rejoicing. This is what’s coming.
Wonkette: “Fox News So Mad Gen. Milley Loves Critical Race Theory, Time To Defund The Military”
It is becoming increasingly clear that conservatives were not kidding when they said they learned history by looking at Confederate statues.
Yesterday, General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — nominated to that role by Donald Trump, mind you — went viral after a congressional hearing, where he patiently explained to GOP Reps. Matt Gaetz and Michael Waltz what Critical Race Theory is, and why he felt it was actually a good thing for cadets and and servicemembers to understand the history of racism in this country and the impact of racist laws on our society.
In response to a question from Rep. Waltz about why there was a course at the US Military Academy at West Point in which an instructor discussed “understanding whiteness and white rage,” Gen. Milley explained that understanding that would be helpful for understanding things like the January 6 insurrection. He also noted that West Point is a university, so students are going to learn things there. [video available at the link]
[…] Milley’s general point, however, was that it is necessary for the “discipline and cohesion” of the United States Military to have a “situational understanding” of the country they are defending, and that includes understanding that racism exists and impacts things.
As you might imagine, Milley’s statements deeply upset conservative pundits at Fox and elsewhere, some of whom now want to cease funding the military entirely. [video available at the link]
LAURA INGRAHAM: We are sending our tax dollars to this military, in an attempt to weed out so-called extremists, which just means conservative evangelicals as far as I can tell. We’re paying for that? Why is Congress not saying “We’re not going to give you a penny until all of this is eradicated”?
[…] it seems like it’s probably a good idea to deter right-wing extremists who join the military to train to build a White Power army in preparation for a race war. That seems like a really bad use of taxpayer dollars.
One in 10 of those charged so far in connection with the January 6 riots had ties to the military. That seems bad.
[…] Rightwing troll Jesse Kelly, in an appearance on Tucker Carlson. [video available at the link]
Kelly’s theory is that hundreds of thousands of Americans are going to die because cadets at West Point are learning these things instead of concentrating on how to carve people’s tongues out.
KELLY: Everybody has to have an LGBTQ flag. And let’s learn about how bad white people are and all this stuff now. But what people are missing is this: There’s only a finite amount of time. And the military only has a finite amount of time and finite amount of concentration for things. Right now, the evil people who still exist in this world as they always have, there’s still a Hitler out there right now. There’s still Stalin, there’s still Mao. They’re spending every waking moment thinking about how they can murder as many Americans as humanly possible.
We are dividing up, whatever percentage that is, a percentage of our military time thinking if we’re friendly enough to women, or if the gay people feel welcome enough, if we’ve done enough transgender surgeries this year? OK, but even if you believe in those things, you don’t have time for that. When when the guy in China is waking up every day spending 10 hours a day thinking about how to carve your tongue out of your head and you’re spending two thinking about doing that to him and the other eight, thinking about being gay friendly, how that ends is war. And people if — when I say hundreds of thousands of Americans, I’m not trying to exaggerate.
Does it really take that much time to not be a bigot? And do we really want a military filled with people who spend eight hours a day thinking about carving people’s tongues out? Because that seems like a pretty fast road to Abu Ghraib.
It is important to note again that we are talking about West Point here, which is, as Gen. Milley explained, a university. It offers majors in chemistry, philosophy, English, psychology, sociology, and many other things. It doesn’t offer majors or courses in “fantasizing about carving out people’s tongues.” […]
Now, I will say this. I get their point, in a way. It’s a sick point, but I get it. Part of the reason we have long taught a propagandistic version of American history is because people are much more likely to be willing to die for a country they think is basically perfect. We need cannon fodder, and cannon fodder doesn’t need to think, except about how the other side is supposedly doing nothing but thinking about how to kill us. It’s why soldiers are told they’re “dying for our freedoms” when none of our freedoms are ever actually at stake in any of these wars.
The anger isn’t just at Critical Race Theory as a concept. They’re not just terrified white people are going to commit mass suicide over the guilt they feel from having benefited from living in a racist nation. They’re terrified of people thinking too deeply, because the more people think for themselves, the less likely they are to be mindlessly jingoistic or go into full moral panic mode over concepts they don’t 100 percent understand. In other words, they’re less likely to vote Republican.
There are times where the lines get blurred between what Donald Trump really believes and what he just says because he’s a conman who will say anything to grift the masses out of their hard-earned money. Amanda Marcotte made a good case earlier this month for how many of [Trump’s] conspiracy theories, like the one where he’s going to be president again in August, aren’t delusional but rather aspirational. That rather than literally believe them — and it doesn’t matter whether he does or not — he’s using such claims, in essence, to give his garbage acolytes orders to step up their attacks on democracy for his sake.
But then there are times when Trump’s rare kind of stupid comes out, and it’s just kind of breathtaking. […]
Surprise, it’s related to his desires to overturn the election he lost like a loser, because he will be licking his wounds over that until the end of his natural life. (That report from the GOP-led Michigan state senate has gotta hurt.) He’s just really confused about some things related to Georgia’s voting systems, and what it means if voters are purged from the rolls for “inactivity.”
[…] Georgia GOP Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced last week that 101,789 Georgia voters could be purged from the rolls this year when the state does its biannual purge, if they don’t respond to correspondence from his office. He lists the contents of that number:
The 101,789 obsolete voter files that will be removed include 67,286 voter files associated with a National Change of Address form submitted to the U.S. Postal Service; 34,227 voter files that had election mail returned to sender; and 276 that had no-contact with elections officials for at least five years. In each of these cases, the individual had no contact with Georgia’s elections officials in any way – either directly or through the Department of Driver Services – for two general elections.
This post isn’t about litigating Georgia’s current purge system, voter suppression that was there before Georgia Republicans really turned the voter suppression up to 10 in response to Trump’s humiliating loss and subsequent incessant whining. This is just about reading those numbers and understanding the words around them: 67,286 voters associated with change of address forms; 34,227 voters got returned to sender; 276 had no contact with elections officials for two general elections in a row. Raffensperger further states a number of dead people who will be removed, we guess so MAGA idiots can’t try to vote in their dead mother-in-laws’ names. About those, Raffensperger makes extra clear that none of the dead voters voted in 2020.
Now let’s see what Captain Brain Worms did with this information […]:
“Georgia now plans to remove over 100,000 ‘obsolete and outdated’ names off their voter rolls,” he said in an email blast from his “Save America” PAC.
“Doing this, they say, will ensure voting files are up to date, while at the same time ensuring voter integrity in future elections. BUT WHAT ABOUT THE LAST ELECTION? WHY WASN’T THIS DONE PRIOR TO THE NOVEMBER 3RD PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, where they had us losing by a very small number of votes, many times less than the 101,789 figure? This means we (you!) won the Presidential Election in Georgia.”
Dude literally just said these people are being purged for inactivity, which means they did not vote in the 2020 election. It’s kind of an ipso facto thing. What part of “had no contact with Georgia’s election officials in any way” for two elections in a row does the moron not understand? As for Trump’s bitching that WHAT ABOUT THE LAST ELECTION WHY WASN’T THIS BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH, Talking Points Memo notes that it’s against federal law to do such purges just before federal elections.
[…] this is WAY MORE than the 11,780 votes Trump demanded Raffensperger “find” him. Those 101,789 people didn’t vote, DUMBASS.
“Exactly 0 registered Georgia voters who may be canceled voted in last year’s election. Voters aren’t purged until they miss 2 general elections,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Mark Niesse noted, fact-checking Trump’s statement. “Federal law bans list maintenance within 90 days of federal elections.”
“When you get active and vote, you get taken off the inactive list,” State Elections Director Chris Harvey told the Journal-Constitution last month.
We don’t have some grand conclusion, just wanted to tell you Donald Trump is the stupidest person on the planet again.
My post was rejected by PZ’s filters. Not sure why. The article is good.
Here’s an excerpt:
Amanda Marcotte made a good case earlier this month for how many of his conspiracy theories, like the one where he’s going to be president again in August, aren’t delusional but rather aspirational. That rather than literally believe them — and it doesn’t matter whether he does or not — he’s using such claims, in essence, to give his garbage acolytes orders to step up their attacks on democracy for his sake.
Gathering his wife and children close to him as he shared the tragic news, area conservative Dan Gainey, 66, informed his family Tuesday that Critical Race Theory had spread to his liver. “There’s no easy way to say this, but I just got the diagnosis that I have Critical Race Theory, and soon my body will be completely ravaged by it,” said Gainey […]. “I promise you all I’m going to fight like Hell to lick this thing, but the truth is that it’s a pernicious ideology capable of spreading rapidly, so I probably don’t have all that much longer. I just pray it doesn’t spread to my brain — if you ever hear me rambling incoherently about how the inequalities that spurred the civil rights movements are still with us today, I’m begging you right now to put me out of my misery.” At press time, Gainey sought to comfort his crying family with the promise that if they remembered the US was historically the least racist country on Earth, he would always be with them in spirit.
His illness was more severe than the White House acknowledged at the time. Advisers thought it would alter his response to the pandemic. They were wrong.
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar’s phone rang with an urgent request: Could he help someone at the White House obtain an experimental coronavirus treatment, known as a monoclonal antibody?
If Azar could get the drug, what would the White House need to do to make that happen? Azar thought for a moment. It was Oct. 1, 2020, and the drug was still in clinical trials. […] Azar said of course he would help.
Azar wasn’t told who the drug was for but would later connect the dots. The patient was one of […] Trump’s closest advisers: Hope Hicks.
A short time later, FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn received a request from a top White House official for a separate case, this time with even greater urgency: Could he get the FDA to sign off on a compassionate-use authorization for a monoclonal antibody right away? There is a standard process that doctors use to apply to the FDA for unapproved drugs on behalf of patients dealing with life-threatening illnesses who have exhausted all other options, and agency scientists review it. The difference was that most people don’t call the commissioner directly.
The White House wanted Hahn to say yes within hours. Hahn, who still did not know who the application was for, consulted career officials. The FDA needs to go by the book, the officials insisted. […]
When Hahn later learned the effort was on behalf of the president, he was stunned. For God’s sake, he thought, it’s the president who’s sick, and you want us to bend the rules? Trump was in the highest-risk category for severe disease from covid-19 — at 74, he rarely exercised and was considered medically obese. He was the type of patient with whom you would want to take every possible precaution. As it did with all compassionate-use applications, the FDA made a decision within 24 hours. Agency officials scrambled to figure out which company’s monoclonal antibody would be most appropriate given the clinical information they had, and selected the one from Regeneron, known simply as Regen-Cov.
[…] Trump’s brush with severe illness and the prospect of death caught the White House so unprepared that they had not even briefed Vice President Mike Pence’s team on a plan to swear him in if Trump became incapacitated.
For months, the president had taunted and dodged the virus, flouting safety protocols by holding big rallies and packing the White House with maskless guests. […]
Trump emerged from the experience triumphant and ever more defiant. He urged people not to be afraid of the virus or let it dominate their lives, disregarding that he had had access to health care and treatments unavailable to other Americans.
[…] The week leading up to Trump’s infection was frenzied, even by his standards. On Saturday, Sept. 26, he had hosted a party with scores of maskless attendees to announce Amy Coney Barrett as his pick for Supreme Court justice. The celebrations had continued indoors, where most people remained maskless. By that time, the virus was surging again, but Trump’s contempt for face coverings had turned into unofficial White House policy. He actually asked aides who wore them in his presence to take them off. If someone was going to do a news conference with him, he made clear that he or she was not to wear a mask by his side.
[…] Trump had also hosted military families at the White House. At Trump’s insistence, few were wearing masks, but they were packed in a little too tight for his comfort. He wasn’t worried about others getting sick, but he did fret about his own vulnerability and complained to his staff afterward. Why were they letting people get so close to him? Meeting with the Gold Star families was sad and moving, he said, but added, “If these guys had covid, I’m going to get it because they were all over me.” He told his staff that they needed to do a better job of protecting him.
Two days after that, he flew to Cleveland for the first presidential debate against his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden. Trump was erratic that whole evening, and he seemed to deteriorate as the night went on. The pundits’ verdicts were brutal.
Almost 48 hours later, Trump became terribly ill. Hours after his tweet announcing he and first lady Melania Trump had coronavirus infections, the president began a rapid spiral downward. His fever spiked, and his blood oxygen level fell below 94 percent, at one point dipping into the 80s. Sean Conley, the White House physician, attended the president at his bedside. Trump was given oxygen in an effort to stabilize him.
The doctors gave Trump an eight-gram dose of two monoclonal antibodies through an intravenous tube. That experimental treatment was what had required the FDA’s sign-off. He was also given a first dose of the antiviral drug remdesivir, also by IV. That drug was authorized for use but still hard to get for many patients because it was in short supply.
Typically, doctors space out treatments to measure a patient’s response. Some drugs, such as monoclonal antibodies, are most effective if they’re administered early in the course of an infection. Others, such as remdesivir, are most effective when they’re given later, after a patient has become critically ill. But Trump’s doctors threw everything they could at the virus all at once. His condition appeared to stabilize somewhat as the day wore on, but his doctors, still fearing he might need to go on a ventilator, decided to move him to the hospital. […]
It was unclear even to Trump’s closest aides just how sick he was. […] As one aide waited in line for a coronavirus test, she saw Conley sprint out of his office with a panicked look. That’s strange, the aide thought. An hour or two later, officials were informed that Pence would be joining the nursing homes call. Trump couldn’t make it.
Trump’s condition worsened early Saturday. His blood oxygen level dropped to 93 percent, and he was given the powerful steroid dexamethasone, which is usually administered if someone is extremely ill (the normal blood oxygen level is between 95 and 100 percent). The drug was believed to improve survival in coronavirus patients receiving supplemental oxygen. The president was on a dizzying array of emergency medicines by now — all at once.
[…] Trump hadn’t wanted to go to the hospital, but his aides had spelled out the choice: He could go to the hospital Friday, while he could still walk on his own, or he could wait until later, when the cameras could capture him in a wheelchair or gurney. […]
At least two of those who were briefed on Trump’s medical condition that weekend said he was gravely ill and feared that he wouldn’t make it out of Walter Reed. People close to Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, said he was consumed with fear that Trump might die.
It was unclear if one of the medications, or their combination, helped, but by Saturday afternoon Trump’s condition began improving. One of the people familiar with Trump’s medical information was convinced the monoclonal antibodies were responsible for the president’s quick recovery.
Throughout the day Saturday, Oct. 3, the restless Trump made a series of phone calls to gauge how his hospitalization was being received by the public. […] At one point Trump even called Fauci to discuss his condition and share his personal assessment of the monoclonal antibodies he had received. He said it was miraculous how quickly they made him feel much better. “This is like a miracle,” Trump told his campaign adviser Jason Miller in another one of his calls from the hospital. “I’m not going to lie. I wasn’t feeling that great.”
Redfield spent the weekend Trump was sick praying. He prayed the president would recover. He prayed that he would emerge from the experience with a newfound appreciation for the seriousness of the threat. And he prayed that Trump would tell Americans they should listen to public health advisers before it was too late. The virus had begun a violent resurgence. Redfield, Fauci, Birx and others felt they had limited time to persuade people to behave differently if they were going to avoid a massive wave of death.
[…] If they couldn’t keep him in the hospital, the advisers hoped that Trump would at least emerge from Walter Reed a changed man. Some even began mentally preparing to finally speak their minds. It would surely be the inflection point, they all thought. There’s nothing like a near-death experience to serve as a wake-up call. […] many people tuned in again as Trump took Marine One back to the White House’s South Lawn on Monday night. They saw him step out […] with a medical mask on his face. He walked along the grass before climbing the steps to the Truman Balcony.
But Trump didn’t go inside. It was a moment of political theater too good to pass up […] He turned from the center of the balcony and looked back toward Marine One and the television cameras. It was clear that he was breathing heavily from the long walk and the climb up the flight of stairs.
[…] Facing the cameras from the balcony, he used his right hand to unhook the mask loop from his right ear, then raised his left hand to pull the mask off his face. He was heavily made up, his face more orange tinted than in the photos from the hospital. The helicopter’s rotors were still spinning. He put the mask into his right pocket, as if he was discarding it once and for all, then raised both hands in a thumbs-up. He was still probably contagious, standing there for all the world to see. He made a military salute as the helicopter departed the South Lawn, and then strode into the White House, passing staffers on his way and failing to protect them from the virus particles emitted from his nose and mouth.
Right then, Redfield knew it was over. Trump showed in that moment that he hadn’t changed at all. The pandemic response wasn’t going to change, either.
Shane Jason Woods becomes the 500th arrestee — and the first to be charged with assaulting a member of the media, law enforcement says.
An Illinois man on Thursday became the first person charged for attacking journalists during the [insurrection …].
Shane Jason Woods, 43, of Auburn, Illinois, who also goes by the name Shane Castleman, was also charged with crimes including assaulting law enforcement and engaging in physical violence in a restricted building, the US Department of Justice announced.
[…]
According to court papers, Woods was recorded on video wearing a Trump baseball cap and Trump face mask while walking around in a restricted area at the Capitol, and assaulting a US Capitol Police officer, causing her to trip and fall to the ground. [normal tourist stuff! –blf]
Woods was also allegedly caught on camera targeting journalists who were filming the attack on the Capitol, and was among a larger crowd of people who “yelled inflammatory rhetoric” against the news media.
In one video, the FBI said, Woods can be seen “walking closely around a cameraman dressed in blue jeans and a blue jacket” and then tackling the cameraman to the ground. [the usual tourist hi-jinks! –blf]
“The manner of attack on the cameraman was very similar to the attack” on the US Capitol Police officer, the complaint said.
A congressional inquiry into Brazil’s disastrous response to the coronavirus pandemic has found mounting evidence that Jair Bolsonaro’s administration committed “crimes against life”, according to the senior politician leading the investigation.
Launched in April to scrutinize the government’s handling of a crisis that has killed half a million citizens, the nationally televised investigation is digging into the political decisions that led up to one of the cruelest moments in the country’s history.
“The most shocking thing is the realization of how negligent the government has been – on so many issues,” Senator Omar Aziz told the Guardian.
Testimony from officials and newly revealed documents are giving Brazilians a clearer view of the context in which the government dismissed offers to purchase vaccines in 2020 and failed to respond quickly when oxygen supplies ran out in Manaus, leaving Covid patients to suffocate.
“It was desperate,” said the senator, who is from Manaus. “We did what we could while the government did not do anything to bring oxygen from our neighbour Venezuela.”
The inquiry has also uncovered evidence suggesting irregularities in the acquisition of the Indian vaccine Covaxin, and it is focusing in on Bolsonaro’s specific role in the crisis. A former employee at the health ministry has recently told the prosecutor’s office that he told the president that he was pressured to sign a contract that would increase the average price of doses by 1,000%.
Government officials have denied any irregularity in the contract and said that the whistleblower’s claims would be investigated. The official is due to give evidence to the inquiry on Friday.
Whether or not laws were broken, the grim result of the government’s response to the crisis is that Covid-19 has hit every home in Brazil, Aziz said.
“There is no Brazilian today who does not know someone who died from Covid, no Brazilian who has not lost a relative member, a neighbour, a friend,” said the senator, whose brother Walid succumbed to the disease.
And while vaccination has eased the crisis in some countries, cases are still mounting in Brazil, where a new and more infectious strain was first reported. In less than two months since the inquiry began, more than 100,000 people have died of Covid-19.
Bolsonaro, meanwhile, has scorned social distancing measures and repeatedly flouted health advice, calling the disease “a little flu”. The former army captain has refused to be vaccinated and has frequently attended events with crowds of supporters. He has twice led mass rallies of motorbike enthusiasts through city centres – and was fined for failing to wear a mask in violation of pandemic restrictions.
…
Aziz also said that the inquiry was focusing on the president’s enthusiastic support for pseudoscientific treatments such as hydroxychloroquine, which he described as a “cure” for Covid despite evidence it is ineffective.
The inquiry has also heard evidence that Bolsonaro never wanted to buy Covid-19 vaccines and originally bet on herd immunity to beat the coronavirus. Critics claim that strategy cost many thousands of Brazilians their lives.
“In this approach, the strong will be saved and the weak will die,” said Aziz. “It is totally wrong.”
Aziz said that the inquiry would also look into the advisers and allies who pushed Bolsonaro to adopt such a catastrophic response to the disaster.
…
The politically charged investigation was launched in April and is being conducted by 11 of the country’s 81 senators, including four Bolsonaro supporters and several of his most outspoken critics.
The panel is expected to release its conclusions by August. It does not have the power to bring criminal charges, but the evidence it gathers could be used in future criminal investigations – and could also prompt congress to launch impeachment proceedings against Bolsonaro.
Polls have shown that eight out of ten Brazilians support the inquiry and it has already shaken the president’s popularity as anti-Bolsonaro street protests have gained traction….
Pakistan’s prime minister, Imran Khan, is facing backlash after he blamed victims of rape for wearing “very few clothes”.
The former cricket captain was questioned by the Axios journalist Jonathan Swan about the ongoing “rape epidemic” in Pakistan and responded by saying: “If a woman is wearing very few clothes it will have an impact on the man unless they are robots. It’s common sense.” [Seems like he’s saying he’s a rapist.]
He did not elaborate on what he meant by “few clothes”, in a country where the vast majority of women wear conservative national dress.
More than a dozen women’s rights groups, including the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, released a statement demanding an apology. “This is dangerously simplistic and only reinforces the common public perception that women are ‘knowing’ victims and men ‘helpless’ aggressors,” they said.
The politician Maryam Nawaz, who is the vice-president of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and daughter of the former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, said Khan was a “rape apologist” and that people who validated rape had the same mindset as the perpetrators.
Kanwal Ahmed, a campaigner for women’s rights, tweeted: “Makes my heart shudder to think how many rapists feel validated today with the prime minister backing their crime.”
Weekend protests have been organised in the cities of Karachi and Lahore….
Here’s a link to the June 25 Guardian coronavirus world liveblog.
From there:
Israel resumes indoor mask requirement after rise in Covid cases
The Israeli health ministry has reimposed a requirement to wear masks in enclosed public places after an increase in Covid cases since it was dropped 10 days ago.
AFP report the surge in infections is a blow for a country that has prided itself on one of the world’s most successful vaccine rollouts.
The head of Israel’s pandemic response taskforce, Nachman Ash, told public radio the requirement came after four days of more than 100 new cases a day, with 227 cases confirmed on Thursday.
“We are seeing a doubling every few days,” Ash said on Friday. “Another thing that’s worrying is the infections are spreading. If we had two cities where most of the infections were, we have more cities where the numbers are rising and communities where the cases are going up.”
Ash said the rise in cases was likely due to the highly contagious Delta variant….
Iran’s supreme leader has received the first coronavirus vaccine developed by the Islamic Republic, state TV reported Friday.
As AP reports, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that he was not interested in taking foreign-made vaccines, because it is better to “wait for the Iranian vaccine because we have to be proud of this national honour”.
In January, Khamenei banned imports of American and Britain vaccines. The Iranian pharmaceutical company Shifafarmed made the COVIran Barekat vaccine based on deactivated virus.
Iran, the worst-hit nation in the Middle East by Covid, has not published data about efficacy of the vaccine, but claims that people who get the homemade jab have about 85% immunity to the deadly virus.
Iranian officials said the death toll from Covid-19 rose by 115 over the day into Friday, putting the country’s total at 83,588 since the pandemic broke out last year. The health ministry said 10,820 new confirmed cases were registered over the same period, bringing that total to 3,150,949….
Russia’s Covid case and death numbers continue to rise. The official figures today are 20,393 new cases, including 7,916 in Moscow, and 601 further deaths. The Kremlin has said vaccine shortages in Russia were linked to growing demand for shots and storage difficulties, which would be resolved in the coming days.
The Welsh first minister Mark Drakeford has warned that the Delta variant is “spreading freely in communities right across Wales”.
The number of confirmed cases of the variant has more than doubled from nearly 500 to around 1,100 in the last week, he said in a press conference in Cardiff, reports PA.
There are now 37 cases per 100,000 people in Wales, he said, with prevalence highest in north Wales, where 97% of new cases are caused by the Delta variant.
1 in 220 people estimated to have had Covid in Scotland last week, says ONS
Around 1 in 220 people in Scotland are estimated to have had coronavirus last week, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the highest level since February.
The figures for the week to June 19, reported by PA, are a significant rise from the previous week when 1 in 600 were estimated to have Covid-19 and mark the highest level since the week to February 19.
KG, I don’t know how they can still expect you to travel to London under these circumstances.
I have no idea why the Miami area building collapsed but man is it worrying to think about all the stuff built on super-low porous ground as seas rise.
The tough thing about Florida sea level rise is that it isn’t just water sloshing over a sea wall or something, it’s water bubbling up through porous limestone. The entire peninsula is more or less Swiss cheese. This is bad.
Many of Russia’s regional governments are now mandating coronavirus vaccinations for some workers as daily cases continue to rise.
AP reports that 18 regions – including Moscow and St Petersburg – made vaccinations compulsory this month for employees in sectors including government offices, retail, restaurants and healthcare.
Moscow authorities have told companies to suspend employees who refuse to get vaccinated without pay and threatened to stop operations at businesses that do not have at least 60% of staff vaccinated with at least one shot by July 15.
From Monday, restaurants, cafes and bars in Moscow will only admit those who have either been vaccinated, recovered from Covid in the past six months or who have a negative test from the last 72 hours. Most elective hospital care is also limited.
It comes as a plan to vaccinate 30m Russians by mid-June fell short by a third.
Derek Chauvin, the former police officer who killed George Floyd on a Minneapolis street last year, is set to be sentenced Friday to a potentially lengthy prison stay.
Chauvin, 45, was convicted in April on charges of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter for his role in Floyd’s death.
Prosecutors for the state of Minnesota requested a 30-year prison sentence, saying it “would properly account for the profound impact of Defendant’s conduct on the victim, the victim’s family, and the community,” according to a sentencing memo.
Chauvin’s defense attorney, Eric Nelson, argued that the former officer should instead receive probation and time served, or at least a sentence less than what the law guides.
…
The sentencing is set to take place at 1:30 p.m. CT at the Hennepin County Government Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Judge Peter Cahill, who oversaw the trial, will likewise decide the sentence.
Members of Floyd’s family will be allowed to deliver victim impact statements, and Chauvin will have an opportunity to speak before he is sentenced.
Since his conviction, Chauvin has been held at Minnesota Correctional Facility-Oak Park Heights, outside of Minneapolis, and was put into a segregated housing unit for his own safety, a prison spokesperson said. The Minnesota Department of Corrections will decide on where Chauvin will serve his time after receiving Cahill’s sentencing order, spokeswoman Sarah Fitzgerald told CNN.
Legally, Chauvin could face up to 40 years in prison for second-degree murder, up to 25 years for third-degree murder and up to 10 years for manslaughter. The second-degree murder charge said Chauvin assaulted Floyd with his knee, which unintentionally caused Floyd’s death. The third-degree murder charge said Chauvin acted with a “depraved mind,” and the manslaughter charge said his “culpable negligence” caused Floyd’s death.
Chauvin has no prior criminal record, so Minnesota’s sentencing guidelines recommend about 12 and a half years in prison for each murder charge and about four years for the manslaughter charge.
The sentences for the charges will likely be served at the same time, rather than consecutively, per sentencing guidelines. That means the sentence for second-degree murder will be of primary importance.
In this case, state prosecutors asked for a tougher sentence than the recommendations provide, citing five aggravating factors they said applied. Judge Peter Cahill has ruled that four of the five factors were proven beyond a reasonable doubt: (1) Chauvin abused a position of trust and authority, (2) he treated Floyd with particular cruelty, (3) children were present during the offense, and (4) Chauvin committed the crime as a group with the active participation of at least three other people.
The findings allow the judge to sentence Chauvin beyond what the guidelines recommend.
…
Chauvin faces other legal issues as well. A federal grand jury indicted all four former officers in connection with Floyd’s death, alleging they violated his constitutional rights, according to court documents filed in federal court in Minnesota. They are due to be arraigned on the charges in September, according to a court filing.
Chauvin also was charged in a separate indictment related to an incident in which he allegedly used unreasonable force on a Minneapolis 14-year-old in September 2017, the Justice Department said in a statement. He is also expected to be arraigned in that case in September, according to court filings.
UK records 15,810 new daily Covid cases and 18 deaths as positive cases rise by nearly 50%
15,810 new people tested positive for Covid-19 today and there were 18 deaths, the latest UK government figures show.
In the last seven days, 90,511 people tested positive – an increase of 47.9% on the previous week. 110 people have died in the last seven days – a 52.8% rise on the previous week.
NEW: Attorney General Merrick Garland says lawsuit alleges Georgia’s voting law was “enacted with the purpose of denying or abridging” the rights of Black voters.
Garland says new memo will instruct prosecutors and the FBI to prioritize the investigation of threats against elections officials.
Garland also said Georgia’s law likely never would have gone into effect if DOJ could still do what it could before the Supreme Court’s decision eight years ago.
Kristen Clarke said the “rushed process” for passing the law didn’t follow normal procedures. Changes “were not made in a vacuum,” she says.
Lawsuit will also challenge restrictions on drop boxes that was widely deployed in the Atlanta metro area, Clarke said.
Georgia law’s ban on food and water was unnecessary and was passed with “unlawful discriminatory intent,” Kristen Clarke said.
Here’s the latest report from AP in Johannesburg on South Africa’s coronavirus surge:
A rapid resurgence of COVID-19 is slamming South Africa’s largest city, Johannesburg, and threatens to overwhelm its hospitals.
Johannesburg, a city of 5 million, and the surrounding Gauteng province account for about 60% of the country’s new daily infections. South Africa’s 7-day rolling average of daily new cases has doubled over the past two weeks from 10 new cases per 100,000 people on June 10 to 22 per 100,000 people on June 24, according to Johns Hopkins University.
South Africa’s rising cases are part of a rampant resurgence across Africa whose peak is expected to exceed that of earlier waves as the continent’s 54 countries struggle to vaccinate even a small percentage of their populations.
The steep rise of cases in Gauteng has not yet reached its peak, bringing authorities to consider increased restrictions on public gatherings and liquor sales. South Africa’s vaccination drive has had a slow start and to date about 2.5 million people of the country’s population of 60 million have received at least one jab.
The military has sent medical personnel to help treat the growing number of patients. Hospitals in Gauteng province are so full that many patients are being sent to medical facilities hours away in Mpumalanga and North West provinces, Lucky Mpeko, a director at QRS ambulance services, told The Associated Press.
Why is the Republican Study Committee urging members to “lean into the culture war”? Because the party believes voters share their post-policy instincts.
As Joe Biden’s presidency got underway, one of the first major legislative challenges was passing a massive COVID relief package.[…]
The expectation was that Republicans would attack it aggressively, just as they targeted President Obama’s Recovery Act 12 years earlier. But instead, GOP leaders on Capitol Hill focused their attention on Dr. Seuss. And Potato Head dolls. And a disclaimer Disney added to some episodes of “The Muppet Show.”
It was an early reminder of the Republican Party’s post-policy intentions: Democrats could focus on governing pesky details surrounding the pandemic and the economy, but GOP officials on Capitol Hill saw value in the politics of cultural grievances.
As Politico reported yesterday, that dynamic is intensifying.
The head of Congress’ largest conservative caucus is encouraging Republicans to embrace anti-critical race theory rhetoric, as the GOP looks to lean into the nation’s culture wars ahead of the looming battle for the House. In a memo sent to members of the Republican Study Committee, its chair Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana said the “backlash against Critical Race Theory is real.”
The Republican Study Committee’s unsubtle memo was quite literally titled, “Lean into the culture war.” The document added, “We are in a culture war … we are winning.”
For now, let’s put aside the fact that many of these Republicans appear wholly indifferent to what critical race theory even is. Let’s also put aside the familiarity of the GOP coming up with some vague and nonsensical boogeyman — Sharia law, 9/11 Mosque, Common Core, Jade Helm, death panels — intended to fuel conservative media and keep conservative voters angry, afraid, and engaged.
What strikes me especially significant about the Republican Study Committee’s advice to members is the party’s wholesale hostility toward governing.
[…] it’s worth pausing to appreciate the qualitative differences between old culture-war fights and new ones. The GOP’s traditional culture war focused on issues that had at least some policy relevance — which is to say, they dealt with issues that Congress could at least try to affect.
Vote for Republicans and they’ll pass a ban abortion. Vote for Republicans and they’ll create new laws to prevent marriage equality. Vote for Republicans and they’ll pass bans on pornography. Vote for Republicans and they’ll mandate English as the official language. And so on.
Obviously, these were (and in some cases, are) highly contentious cultural and political fights, but there was at least a correlation between the issues and those hoping to make federal policy changes.
This new approach to the culture war is different in that Congress couldn’t ban the study of race, power, and institutions even if it wanted to. Similarly, Republicans couldn’t spearhead a legislative initiative to force Dr. Seuss Enterprises to publish old books with racist pictures or regulate the gender identity of Potato Head toys.
None of this falls within the purview of Congress. None of these issues can even be conceptually addressed through federal legislation. Republicans are increasingly fixated on cultural grievances with no possible solutions in mind.
[…] We won’t hear Republicans saying, “Vote for us and we’ll do something about the stuff you hate,” but we will hear Republicans effectively saying, “Vote for us because we hate the same stuff you hate.”
Lindsey Graham helped negotiate a bipartisan agreement on infrastructure. Now that the deal is in place, he’s ready to oppose it.
Early on in the Obama era, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) not only recognized the climate crisis as real, he also believed that federal action to address the crisis was likely. In the summer of 2009, the South Carolina Republican began detailed negotiations with then-Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and then-Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) on a comprehensive climate/energy bill.
In time, a framework came together, and it looked like it might even pass — right up until Graham walked away. It was 11 years ago this month that the GOP senator, complaining about the order in which Democrats intended to vote on legislation, said he wouldn’t just oppose the proposal he helped write, Graham would also join his party in filibustering it.
The climate bill died soon after. Had it passed, the legislation likely would’ve made a big difference toward curbing the intensifying crisis, but Congress still hasn’t addressed the issue in meaningful ways.
The incident served as a reminder that Graham will work on bipartisan agreements, but that doesn’t always mean he’ll follow through on them. Keep this in mind when reading this morning’s report from Politico on the South Carolinian and infrastructure.
We caught up with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Thursday night as he was boarding a plane to California. Graham, you may remember, is one of the 11 Republicans who signed onto the original bipartisan infrastructure framework, which seemed to prove that there were enough Republicans to overcome a filibuster…. After hearing what Biden said about linking the small bipartisan bill to the big reconciliation bill, Graham told us … he’s out.
“If he’s gonna tie them together, he can forget it!” Graham said, referring to President Biden and the Democratic strategy. “I’m not doing that. That’s extortion! I’m not going to do that. The Dems are being told you can’t get your bipartisan work product passed unless you sign on to what the left wants, and I’m not playing that game.”
Graham went to tell Politico that the five Senate Republicans negotiating the deal never told him about the linkage strategy and he does not believe that they were aware of it. “Most Republicans could not have known that,” he said. “There’s no way. You look like a f***ing idiot now.” He added, “I don’t mind bipartisanship, but I’m not going to do a suicide mission.”
In reality, White House officials started pushing the two-track approach — one partisan bill, coupled with a more ambitious reconciliation bill — as far back as March. It’s the sort of thing Republican senators clearly noticed. [Oh, what a shock. Graham lied.]
[…]Graham is apparently of the opinion that the president shouldn’t just accept a modest infrastructure compromise, he should also be prepared to sacrifice much of his domestic policy agenda because some Republicans have offered him a modest infrastructure compromise.
Or put another way, Graham says he’ll oppose one bill he helped craft unless Biden scuttles an as-yet-unwritten separate bill that Republicans won’t like.
Stepping back, there were five GOP senators at the White House yesterday, finalizing a deal on infrastructure: Ohio’s Rob Portman, Maine’s Susan Collins, Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, Utah’s Mitt Romney, and Louisiana’s Bill Cassidy. Obviously, that’s not enough to overcome an inevitable Republican filibuster.
That said, as we discussed earlier, there’s another group of Republican senators who helped shape the framework that was agreed to yesterday, and if they follow through, that would presumably put the legislation on track to succeed.
Graham was part of that group. Last night, he said he’s walking away.
I can appreciate why a bipartisan breakthrough generated excitement, but there’s no reason to assume this agreement will pass.
It’s notable that Pence is implicitly conceding that the step Trump wanted him to take on Jan. 6 was “un-American.”
[…] [T]here are those in our party who believe that, in my position as presiding officer over the joint session, that I possessed the authority to reject or return electoral votes certified by the states,” Pence said in remarks at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. “But the Constitution provides the vice president with no such authority before the joint session of Congress.
“And the truth is,” he continued, “there’s almost no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president. The presidency belongs to the American people and the American people alone.” […]
And there’s this from the Associated Press:
Former Vice President Mike Pence has defended his role in certifying the results of the 2020 election, saying he’s “proud” of what he did on Jan. 6 and declaring there’s “almost no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president.”
Nearly all COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. now are in people who weren’t vaccinated, a staggering demonstration of how effective the shots have been and an indication that deaths per day — now down to under 300 — could be practically zero if everyone eligible got the vaccine.
An Associated Press analysis of available government data from May shows that “breakthrough” infections in fully vaccinated people accounted for fewer than 1,200 of more than 853,000 COVID-19 hospitalizations. That’s about 0.1%.
And only about 150 of the more than 18,000 COVID-19 deaths in May were in fully vaccinated people. That translates to about 0.8%, or five deaths per day on average.
The AP analyzed figures provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC itself has not estimated what percentage of hospitalizations and deaths are in fully vaccinated people, citing limitations in the data.
Among them: Only about 45 states report breakthrough infections, and some are more aggressive than others in looking for such cases. So the data probably understates such infections, CDC officials said.
Still, the overall trend that emerges from the data echoes what many health care authorities are seeing around the country and what top experts are saying.
Earlier this month, Andy Slavitt, a former adviser to the Biden administration on COVID-19, suggested that 98% to 99% of the Americans dying of the coronavirus are unvaccinated.
And CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said on Tuesday that the vaccine is so effective that “nearly every death, especially among adults, due to COVID-19, is, at this point, entirely preventable.” She called such deaths “particularly tragic.”
Deaths in the U.S. have plummeted from a peak of more than 3,400 day on average in mid-January, one month into the vaccination drive.
About 63% of all vaccine-eligible Americans — those 12 and older — have received at least one dose, and 53% are fully vaccinated, according to the CDC. While vaccine remains scarce in much of the world, the U.S. supply is so abundant and demand has slumped so dramatically that shots sit unused.
Ross Bagne, a 68-year-old small-business owner in Cheyenne, Wyoming, was eligible for the vaccine in early February but didn’t get it. He died June 4, infected and unvaccinated, after spending more than three weeks in the hospital, his lungs filling with fluid. He was unable to swallow because of a stroke.
“He never went out, so he didn’t think he would catch it,” said his grieving sister, Karen McKnight. She wondered: “Why take the risk of not getting vaccinated?”
The preventable deaths will continue, experts predict, with unvaccinated pockets of the nation experiencing outbreaks in the fall and winter. Ali Mokdad, a professor of health metrics sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle, said modeling suggests the nation will hit 1,000 deaths per day again next year.
…
“The majority of them express some regret for not being vaccinated,” Garza said. “That’s a pretty common refrain that we’re hearing from patients with COVID.”
The stories of unvaccinated people dying may convince some people they should get the shots, but young adults — the group least likely to be vaccinated — may be motivated more by a desire to protect their loved ones, said David Michaels, an epidemiologist at George Washington University’s school of public health in the nation’s capital.
Others need paid time off to get the shots and deal with any side effects, Michaels said….
It looks like a combination of riling up the extremists with DARVO (at no point does Carlson show objective threats), and maybe role-modeling moments of loss of control through mania?
Laughter is used to, maybe “cancel out” negative feeling works. “Skip to a different motivational track” might work too. These ideas need lots of non-violent confrontation. I have on more than one occasion turned down an offer to fight from Trumpkins, telling them that it’s a social confrontation and they will have to get their physical aggression out on someone else.
Re: Me 145
“Metaphorically feeling: Comprehending textural metaphors activates somatosensory cortex” https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0093934X12000028
There’s some stretching here since this is in the somatosensory (skin) senses (haha, skin, stretching), but I think if someone uses violent imagery they are already part way there.
This is tricky because I can’t tell someone experiencing violence not to use violent imagery, but I try to keep mine under tight control.
Carlson could just be trying to look like he/they are too unstable to mess with too. If so it’s another posture to be called out while continuing to point out the lies.
Early in the pandemic when Trump was deflecting blame onto hospitals, I forget the specific BS, one of my facebook friends decided to make a “heads rolling” comment directed at health care workers. I told my “friend” that if they went after health care workers it would be their head we would be going after.
What followed was a private message where they threatened to come down from FL to AZ to fight me. They insisted they were a “psycho” and would really do it. I laughed at the suggestion and told them they can do what they want but they would just end up in jail because I would not fight them, and psychos did not have an advantage with oppositional behavior like people with tourette syndrome did (I’m still thinking about if that TS aside was useful, I think yes because it negates the other person’s political use of mental illness).
They defriended me and I have not heard from them since.
Brony @ #s 145-147, interesting thoughts (and fascinating link @ #146!). “Maybe role-modeling moments of loss of control through mania?” Mania feels right, but I have the sense that it’s more involuntary (especially here). My speculation of the moment is that it could be a sort of reflexive fear/defense reaction, particularly since it seems to happen when his cruelty towards less powerful people is being confronted by authority figures. He tries to play it off as mockery or contempt, but it doesn’t come across that way.
In Georgia, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported yesterday that a state judge dismissed most of a lawsuit “seeking a deep inspection of Fulton County absentee ballots from last year’s presidential election, a review pursued by voters trying to find fraud. Superior Court Judge Brian Amero’s ruling jeopardizes the prospects for the ballot inspection to continue, though a plaintiff in the lawsuit said he believes it will soon move forward.”
Here’s one of those things that drive me to distraction but I at least enjoy flagging to everyone’s attention when it’s so egregious. Mitch McConnell is now claiming Republicans have somehow been hoodwinked, double-crossed, done dirty by Democrats springing ‘linkage’ on them: Basically, that the White House and the Democratic caucus will support the bipartisan mini-infrastructure bill as long as they can put the rest of their plan in a reconciliation bill.
Then I noticed an AP reporter, apparently new to the White House beat, flagged a new AP story with this: “This is the catch for the WH on the infrastructure deal right now: Senators who were part of the bipartisan group were never told of such an explicit linking of the two packages, the two people familiar with the discussions said.”
The article itself, by Lisa Mascaro, manages to be even more credulous.
Livid and “blindsided” over President Joe Biden’s refusal to sign a bipartisan infrastructure deal without passage of his broader priorities, Republican senators Friday were frantically considering options as the future of the sweeping compromise appeared in doubt.
The pressing question here is why the Associated Press has insisted on keeping its reporters locked in sensory deprivation chambers for all of June. Linkage, as discussed above, has been an explicit condition for Democrats for a couple weeks and stated constantly and publicly. What’s more, linkage has nothing to do with Republicans. Lindsey Graham squealed, “no deal by extortion.” But Democrats aren’t asking for any Republican votes. So how is Lindsey being extorted? Linkage is all about Democrats participation in a reconciliation package. So who’s being extorted?
Indeed, as DC reporter Edward-Isaac Dovere reminded everyone, none other than Mitch McConnell, Roy Blunt, Portman, Cassidy and probably every other Republican has been explicitly discussing their assumption that this is a linked two track process for weeks. On June 15th, McConnell said, “we are anticipating at some point getting a reconciliation bill. I guess what we will find out soon is whether there’s an additional bipartisan effort to address the subject that a lot of us would like to address.”
Then there’s this tweet from three days ago:
On infrastructure, Schumer says he expects the parallel tracks to continue into July, when he hopes to see votes on a bipartisan hard infrastructure bill AND a Dem-only reconciliation bill containing other priorities.
Brony @ #152, it could totally be intentional. I’m no expert and I can’t even verbalize what about it specifically reads as involuntary. It’s like he’s trying to project “Look how transgressive I am! I’m saying Mark Milley is a cowardly, stupid pig no one respects! See how much contempt I have?!” But the exaggerated, manic speech and the giggling make him seem more skittish than genuinely contemptuous.
Sen. Schatz: “Hey media folks: You don’t have to pretend to believe that Republicans haven’t been reading the news for the last two months when legislative leaders said explicitly that we were moving on two tracks. You don’t have to pretend to believe that they are surprised or angry.”
Tourists, dressed in replica Red Army costumes, raise their right fists and pledge their allegiance to the Chinese Communist Party.
This is “red tourism” in China, where people flock to historic sites to absorb a sanitized version of the party’s history.
A surge in “red tourism,” in which visitors are shown a carefully censored, Instagram-friendly history of the Chinese Communist Party, comes as China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has stepped up pro-party propaganda within the country.
On display: chairs used by Xi Jinping and others when they visited Mao Zedong’s mountain home in Yan’an. [Oooooh, chairs!] Not on display: reminders of bloody party purges, the millions who starved to death during the Great Leap Forward or the persecutions and deaths of the Cultural Revolution.
With the 100th anniversary of the party’s founding on July 1, Chinese developers are jazzing up typically dull “red tourism” sites. At a new Communist Party theme park in Yan’an, Red Army mascots parade down “Red Street,” a shopping boulevard with snacks and souvenirs.
“I think patriotic education is necessary, whether one is a child or an adult,” said Gao Wenwen, 26, who recently visited the park. One expert on Chinese politics said, “The thing about China is that there’s only one origin story, and it’s not up for debate.”
On the first day of Pride month, the governor of Florida signed a law banning transgender girls from joining girls’ sports teams in schools and colleges. It was just one of 13 anti-trans bills conservative lawmakers in the US passed this year – and one of more than 110 proposed bills, many of which also target access to gender-affirming healthcare. This is by far the largest number filed in a single year in US history.
Guardian LA correspondent, Sam Levin, and Prof Jules Gill-Peterson, a historian and expert on trans kids, examine how this legislative attack has escalated and how the presence of trans kids in America is not a new phenomenon.
I’m no expert and I can’t even verbalize what about it specifically reads as involuntary. It’s like he’s trying to project “Look how transgressive I am! I’m saying Mark Milley is a cowardly, stupid pig no one respects! See how much contempt I have?!” But the exaggerated, manic speech and the giggling make him seem more skittish than genuinely contemptuous.
Tucker Carlson aired quite a bit of General Milley speaking, uninterrupted. The result was that the stark contrast between lightweight/possibly-out-of-control Tucker and serious/thoughtful/intelligent Gernal Milley was highlighted. Tucker shot himself in the foot … even without the occasional strangeness in his delivery.
After the state of New York banned Rudy Giuliani from practicing law, Americans expressed utter shock and disbelief that he had a law license.
“I did not know that he was an actual lawyer,” Carol Foyler, who lives in Bridgeport, Connecticut, said. “I just thought he was some skeezy guy Trump met at a wedding or something.”
“The fact that Rudy Giuliani had a law license shows that the system for granting law licenses is broken,” Harland Dorrinson, a resident of Toledo, Ohio, said. “There need to be background checks to prevent this sort of thing from happening in the future.”
Tracy Klugian, a spokesman for the New York State Supreme Court’s appellate division, said that their offices have been deluged with requests for law licenses ever since the Giuliani news broke. “People now think we’ll give a law license to anyone,” he said.
“Breaking on @MSNBC: The Trump Organization is expected to be hit with criminal charges as soon as next week by Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance’s office in a case that Trump attorneys say is tied to tax evasion-related conduct, multiple sources tell @NBCNews.”
In April last year, Georgia House Speaker David Ralston (R), criticized a move from Georgia’s secretary of state to send absentee ballot applications to every eligible voter in Georgia in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. “The president said it best, this will be extremely devastating to Republicans and conservatives in Georgia,” Ralston said.
“This will certainly drive up turnout,” he complained later of the secretary of state’s decision.
Civil rights attorneys took note. One of them flagged the interview on Twitter, writing that Ralston was “admitting high voter turnout is bad for Republicans.”
A little more than a year later, the federal government sued Georgia over a new law, SB 202, [ that prohibited] elections officials from sending Georgians unsolicited absentee ballot applications. The Justice Department alleged Friday that the changes not only disproportionately impacted Black voters, but also that this outcome was the intent of Georgia legislators.
The lawsuit introduced Ralston’s words to the court record, quoting him saying that sending absentee ballot applications to all voters would be devastating for Republicans. And the civil rights attorney who flagged his comments on Twitter a year ago stood behind Attorney General Merrick Garland as he announced the legal action. That attorney, Vanita Gupta, is now the associate attorney general.
[…] And though Georgia officials were quick to trash the suit — “the Biden Administration continues to do the bidding of Stacey Abrams and spreads more lies about Georgia’s election law,” Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) said — the 46-page complaint quoted Georgia Republicans several times to drive the point home.
[…] “Rep. Fleming had already made his intentions for new election legislation clear in a November 15, 2020 op-ed for the Augusta Chronicle,” the suit noted. […] “If elections were like coastal cities, absentee balloting would be the shady part of town down near the docks you do not want to wander into because the chance of being shanghaied is significant,” he wrote. “Expect the Georgia Legislature to address that in our next session in January.”
The suit then described Fleming’s role, four months later, in introducing a 90-page version of the bill that would eventually restrict absentee ballot applications, impose new ID requirements on their use, and impose penalties on groups that sent follow-up absentee ballot applications to voters.
[…] facts that legislators allegedly knew at the time the bill was being debated […] Black voters disproportionately relied on absentee voting in recent elections, and that Black voters who vote in-person are more likely to get stuck in long lines […]
“The Georgia Legislature knew from debate within the General Assembly and witness testimony at hearings that SB 202 would harm Black voters, yet it rushed through a hasty process to pass SB 202 while relying on debunked and pretextual claims of voter fraud as a rationale,” the suit alleged. […]
The suit noted Georgia Republicans’ focus on Donald Trump and his supporters’ bogus claims of election fraud in Georgia, which in addition to legal challenges spurred an obsession with Black poll workers portrayed in surveillance camera footage, which the Trump campaign misleadingly spun as scandalous evidence of underhanded tactics.
[…] “In particular, during a state Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing in early December 2020, lawyers replayed misleading video footage of mostly Black Fulton County election workers tabulating ballots, alleging that the video contained evidence of voter fraud, although these allegations had already been debunked by the Secretary of State’s office.”
[…] “I went back over the weekend to really look at where this really started to gain momentum in the legislature,” Duncan said on CNN at the time. “And it was when Rudy Giuliani showed up in a couple committee rooms and spent hours spreading misinformation and sowing doubt across hours of testimony.”
[…] ProPublica has obtained new details about the Trump White House’s knowledge of the gathering storm, after interviewing more than 50 people involved in the events of Jan. 6 and reviewing months of private correspondence. Taken together, these accounts suggest that senior Trump aides had been warned the Jan. 6 events could turn chaotic, with tens of thousands of people potentially overwhelming ill-prepared law enforcement officials.
Rather than trying to halt the march, Trump and his allies accommodated its leaders, according to text messages and interviews with Republican operatives and officials.
Katrina Pierson, a former Trump campaign official assigned by the White House to take charge of the rally planning, helped arrange a deal where those organizers deemed too extreme to speak at the Ellipse could do so on the night of Jan. 5. That event ended up including incendiary speeches from Jones and Ali Alexander, the leader of Stop the Steal, who fired up his followers with a chant of “Victory or death!”
The record of what White House officials knew about Jan. 6 and when they knew it remains incomplete. Key officials, including White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, declined to be interviewed for this story.
Rally organizers interviewed by ProPublica said they did not expect Jan. 6 to culminate with the violent sacking of the Capitol. But they acknowledged they were worried about plans by the Stop the Steal movement to organize an unpermitted march that would reach the steps of the building as Congress gathered to certify the election results.
One of the Women for America First organizers told ProPublica he and his group felt they needed to urgently warn the White House of the possible danger.
“A last-minute march, without a permit, without all the metro police that’d usually be there to fortify the perimeter, felt unsafe,” Dustin Stockton said in a recent interview.
“And these people aren’t there for a fucking flower contest,” added Jennifer Lynn Lawrence, Stockton’s fiancee and co-organizer. “They’re there because they’re angry.”
Stockton said he and Kremer initially took their concerns to Pierson. Feeling that they weren’t gaining enough traction, Stockton said, he and Kremer agreed to call Meadows directly.
Kremer, who has a personal relationship with Meadows dating back to his early days in Congress, said she would handle the matter herself. Soon after, Kremer told Stockton “the White House would take care of it,” which he interpreted to mean she had contacted top officials about the march.
Kremer denied that she ever spoke with Meadows or any other White House official about her Jan. 6 concerns. “Also, no one on my team was talking to them that I was aware of,” she said in an email to ProPublica. Meadows declined to comment on whether he’d been contacted.
A Dec. 27 text from Kremer obtained by ProPublica casts doubt on her assertion. Written at a time when her group was pressing to control the upcoming Jan. 6 rally, it refers to Alexander and Cindy Chafian, an activist who worked closely with Alex Jones. “The WH and team Trump are aware of the situation with Ali and Cindy,” Kremer wrote. “I need to be the one to handle both.” Kremer did not answer questions from ProPublica about the text.
So far, congressional and law enforcement reconstructions of Jan. 6 have established failures of preparedness and intelligence sharing by the U.S. Capitol Police, the FBI and the Pentagon, which is responsible for deploying the D.C. National Guard.
But those reports have not addressed the role of White House officials in the unfolding events and whether officials took appropriate action before or during the rally. Legislation that would have authorized an independent commission to investigate further was quashed by Senate Republicans.
[…] Our reporting raises new questions that will not be answered unless Trump insiders tell the story of that day. It remains unclear, for example, precisely what Meadows and other White House officials learned of safety concerns about the march and whether they took those reports seriously.
[…] ProPublica has learned that White House officials worked behind the scenes to prevent the leaders of the march from appearing on stage and embarrassing the president. But Trump then undid those efforts with his speech, urging the crowd to join the march on the Capitol organized by the very people who had been blocked from speaking.
[snipped a detailed account of rightwing leaders planning to keep Trump in power, and stoking violence]
“Stop the Steal’s propensity to attract white supremacists, militia members, and others who actively promote violence, may lead to a significantly dangerous situation for law enforcement and the general public alike,” the Capitol Police wrote in a Jan. 3 intelligence assessment.
[…] at least one Capitol Police intelligence officer had suspicions about this deceptive strategy, but that leadership failed to appreciate it — yet another example of an intelligence breakdown.
On Dec. 31, the officer sent an email expressing her concerns that the permit requests were “being used as proxies for Stop the Steal” and that those requesting permits “may also be involved with organizations that may be planning trouble” on Jan. 6.
A Capitol Police spokesperson told ProPublica on April 2, “Our intelligence suggested one or more groups were affiliated with Stop the Steal,” after we asked for a copy of the One Nation Under God permit […]
Alexander wanted to distinguish Stop the Steal by being more directly confrontational than Kremer’s group [Women for America First] and the tea party. “Our movement is masculine in nature,” he said in a livestream. […]
While the 13th Amendment abolished chattel slavery, an often ignored clause still allows for slavery and involuntary servitude as “punishment for a crime.” This “slavery clause” is now the target of #EndTheException, a new campaign launched this year on Juneteenth weekend. #EndTheException is pushing for the passage of the Abolition Amendment, a joint resolution cosponsored by Sen. Jeff Merkley and Rep. Nikema Williams, which would strike the slavery clause from the 13th Amendment making it so that “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude may be imposed as a punishment for a crime.”
On Saturday, June 19, as communities across the country celebrated Juneteenth—a holiday long celebrated by Black Americans, particularly Black Texans—Merkley and Williams joined advocates from groups including WorthRises, LatinoJustice PRLDF, JustLeadershipUSA, and the Anti-Recidivism Coalition for an online discussion about the #EndTheException campaign, and to explain how the promise of freedom has yet to be fulfilled.
The average incarcerated worker earns 86 cents per hour, and in five states—Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, and Texas—laborers inside earn nothing. Jorge Renaud, the national criminal justice director for LatinoJustice PRLDF, was incarcerated in Texas for 27 years. For 13 years, he experienced not just the painful labor of fieldwork—chopping trees and picking cotton, sorghum, and corn—but also retaliation when refusing to work. […]
[…] As bad as things were that day [June 1, 2020, the date that Trump and William Barr violently dispelled peaceful protesters in Lafayette Square so that Trump could march across the street and conduct a Bible-waving photo-op] it turns out they could have been much worse. Because Trump actually told Barr to have the military clear the streets using active-duty military. That instruction was also given to the defense secretary Mark Esper and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff Gen. Mark Milley. While Barr, Esper, and Milley informed Trump that moving people out of his way using armed federal troops was a problem, Trump’s team launched straight into making it not a problem — by drafting up a proclamation of the Insurrection Act. The whole thing, which included a prolonged rant from Trump about the need to use violence to put down protests over the illegal use of violence, left Miller and Esper “stunned.”
Trump then did what he always does: lie about it. He issued a statement saying that “It’s absolutely not true” that he wanted to deploy active duty troops “and if it was true, I would have done it.”
Additional sources indicate that Trump kept the proclamation on hand, which would match his repeated threats to use the military in cities ranging from Seattle to Minneapolis. But given that Barr provided Trump with a mish mash of units to play with, including federal marshals and a team of riot police from federal prisons, it seems he never got around to actually pulling the trigger to put troops in city streets after Esper and Milley told him taking such an action would be likely to increase protests — which was a very good call on their parts.
Picking sides in a feud between Fox News primetime stars Tweedledumb and Tweedle-fuckface is really kind of pointless. It’s kind of like favoring one flesh-eating parasite over another. […]
Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson are like two peas in a pod—or, more accurately, like a shouty pair of orca lungs covered in sweaty neck hair. They lie, they distort, they gaslight, and … they fight.
The latest? Hannity took a few veiled shots at his oleaginous colleague last night after a New York Times reporter—who had recently dished extensively on Tucker’s smarmy overtures to the mainstream media he pretends to hate—tweeted out a suggestion that Tucker was laughing at Hannity behind his back over “how much of a cringing Trump sycophant Sean is.”
It must have hit a nerve because … holy fuck. Check this out: [video available at the link]
HANNITY: Instead of answering my questions, Mr. Prestigious Holier-Than-Thou-New York Times-calls himself a journalist-Ben Smith—you know, that’s the same guy that not only released Hillary Clinton’s bought-and-paid-for dirty Russian disinformation dossier but said he believed it, he said the broad outline of the dossier is unquestionably true. Ben, do you stand by that tonight?
Anyway, he decided to try to change the topic on social media and attack yours truly, and this New York Times reporter used an … now this is pretty funny. The New York Times, with all the prestige that they like to think that they have, they’re now tweeting out from an account and using an account on Twitter that’s called—their words, not mine—@Pop[B-Word]. A Twitter account with 34,000 followers. […]
Now the big news is that some people at Fox apparently don’t like me and said bad things about me gutlessly behind my back, according to Ben Smith and members of the media mob. Ben, if that’s true, that’s called a normal day in the world that I live in. And here’s a little secret for you, Ben, and all the liberals that hate-watch this program every night. I don’t care. I don’t give an Adam Schiff about what anybody says about me. I’ve been doing this show 25 years, 33 years in radio. I do this show, I do my radio show, I do it for my audience, the people that have been so loyal to me and give me this camera every night and give me that microphone every day. And I do it loudly, I do it proudly, and I do it unapologetically, and I’m not going to change just because some of you don’t like me. I’m open and honest about my conservative beliefs and who I support. It’s hardly a breaking news alert, Ben. And unfortunately, honesty and truth, that’s not a priority for people at The New York Times, like Ben. [LOL]
[…] First of all, the Steele Dossier was never meant to be the final word on anything. It was raw, unverified intelligence put together by an operative who was originally commissioned by a conservative anti-Trump group, not Hillary Clinton. Also, lots of the details in the dossier were later determined to be at least “partially true.”
Yeah, Pop[B-Word] is a really silly name.[…] Maybe the Cyber Ninjas should look into this.
The best way to prove you don’t care about something is to broadcast an entire segment to your millions of nightly viewers about that same thing. […]
The New York Times ran a column this week about how Fox News pundit Tucker Carlson – who made his name railing against the mainstream media, calling them “animals… not worthy of respect” – is actually a massive gossip and a regular anonymous source for many media stories about Trump, Fox and even himself.
Keen to protect his colleague’s honour, Sean Hannity rushed to attack the piece on air, trashing the NYT in time-honoured Fox News fashion. But Hannity might not have been quite so quick to jump to his defence if he knew how Tucker spoke about him in those off-the-record gossip sessions.
“Any brothers-in-arms, comrades-in-crusade spirit between the two appears to only flow one way. Turns out one of Tucker’s favourite topics to chuckle about with his MSM mates is how much of a cringing Trump sycophant Sean is.
In all seriousness looking at impulsive and chosen possibilities is worth it because I think that’s a variable that is useful when concretely identified. Lots of people probably don’t consciously try to determine the difference, (as long as the act of looking at the difference isn’t trying to be used as an excuse, no implications, I just like to note complicating factors).
The system 1/system 2 distinction is probably useful here.
[…] On Friday, Officer Fanone met with McCarthy behind closed doors. Fanone’s first words to reporters after leaving McCarthy’s office were, “I need a drink.”
Fanone gave more specifics of his interaction with McCarthy, saying that he had “specific requests” of the House’s top Republican. “To denounce the 21 Republicans who voted against the Gold Medal bill, which would recognize my coworkers and colleagues that fought to secure the Capitol on Jan. 6. I also asked him to denounce Andrew Clyde’s statements regarding Jan. 6, specifically that it was something of a ‘normal tour day’ here at the Capitol. I found those remarks to be disgusting. I also asked him to publicly denounce the baseless theory that the FBI was behind the Jan. 6 insurrection. I had the privilege and honor this week of meeting with quite a few FBI agents, as well as other members of law enforcement, who’ve worked tirelessly in investigating both the assaults on me, and many of my coworkers.” […]
An engineer warned in October 2018 that he had discovered “major structural damage” to a concrete slab below the pool deck in the section of the Champlain Tower South condominium building that collapsed Thursday, killing at least four and leaving scores trapped, according to records released by local authorities late Friday.
The engineer, Frank P. Morabito, said in a structural survey report that waterproofing had failed below the pool deck and entrance drive, allowing damaging leaks.
“Failure to replace the waterproofing in the near future will cause the extent of the concrete deterioration to expand exponentially,” Morabito wrote. He said a “major error” had been made in the construction of the building, when waterproofing was laid on a flat slab rather than a sloped surface, to allow water to run off.
Morabito also found “abundant cracking” and deterioration in the concrete columns, beams and walls supporting the parking garage under the pool deck, along with damaged and exposed rebar.
Morabito said in his report that necessary repair work, which he said would be aimed at “maintaining the structural integrity” of the building, would be “extremely expensive” and create significant disruption for residents.
He also wrote that some previous repairs to the slab supporting the pool above the garage, including the patching of cracks, had been done “less than satisfactorily” and needed to be completed again.
Morabito’s report detailed other problems including “significant cracking” in the stucco facade of the building, along with flooding in some apartments due to failed seals on doors and windows, and damaged balconies. […]
Wonkette: “Kevin McCarthy Tells Cop Injured In Jan. 6 Riot He Can Only Condemn Republican Lies In Secret”
[…] For quite some time now, Washington DC police officer Michael Fanone, who was severely injured in the January 6 insurrection, has been trying to set up a meeting to discuss his assault with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. And on Friday, that finally happened.
[…] All Officer Fanone wanted, really, was for Rep. McCarthy to do his job and publicly denounce the ridiculous lies being told by his fellow House Republicans about the January 6 insurrection and also get them to please stop telling those lies, on account of the fact that they are harmful and pretty fucking insulting to Fanone and the other officers who were there that day. Not to mention how insulting it was to the intelligence of the entire nation, who saw things live on television and were thus totally aware that the riots were not, as Rep. Andrew Clyde claimed, just like a “normal tourist visit” […]
Fanone had hoped McCarthy would publicly denounce Clyde’s comments and admonish him for them, along with other bizarre lies told by House Republicans. Like Paul Gosar claiming that the Capitol police “executed” Ashli Babbit. He hoped he would also denounce the 21 House Republicans who childishly voted against giving Congressional Gold Medals to the officers who responded to the situation, because they wanted to pretend that the events on January 6 were actually a lovely and peaceful demonstration and/or tourist visit.
He asked McCarthy to “publicly denounce the baseless theory that the F.B.I. was behind the Jan. 6 insurrection.” as well.
Surprise, he got absolutely none of this. Rather, McCarthy said that he would discuss these lies privately and “address it in a personal level with some of those members,” but would not say anything publicly.
“What I talk to my members is what I talk to my members personally about,” McCarthy told Officer Fanone. “But if you want to talk to somebody about how they vote, talk to them.”
[…] “Principled Republicans” are a species that exists only in the imaginations of Democrats who have watched one too many episodes of The West Wing. McCarthy, like other Republicans, knows who pays his bills, knows who votes for him, and he does what they want so that they continue to vote for him. He also knows who is not going to vote for him, and that is pretty much anyone who would give him any kind of credit for calling out these lies.
Officers Fanone and Dunn asked McCarthy to be judicious in which Republicans he put on the select congressional panel to investigate the events of January 6, and he said he would take things seriously, which we can assume means that Marjorie Taylor Greene already has a saved seat.
It’s over a 100 degrees in Portland, Oregon, Sunday with an expected high of “Fuck You.” A heat dome, the type normally found in an arid southwest desert, has parked itself over the Pacific Northwest, and an excessive heat warning is in effect for most of Oregon and Washington through Monday night.
According to meteorologist Ben Noll, Portland is hotter today than about 99.8 percent of the Earth. The only places worse off are Africa’s Sahara Desert, the Persian Gulf, and California’s deserts. Normal highs this time of year in Portland are in the mid-70s or what Southerners like myself call “sweater weather.” The record-breaking temperatures have climate scientists concerned and sweaty.
“This is pretty early in the season to be experiencing so many days where temperatures are record breaking. It’s worrisome. It’s just June,” said Deepti Singh, a climate scientist and associate professor at WSU Vancouver. “This should be a warning sign for us that we’re experiencing the impacts of climate change right now.”
[…] Oregon and Washington residents are unprepared for extreme heat events, just as Texas was devastated earlier this year by extreme cold. Just 36 percent of homes in Seattle have air conditioning, one of the lowest rates for a major US city. Portland fortunately has more than double that number. We’re not just talking about temporary discomfort, though, or sleepless nights. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that 618 people die from extreme heat each year, and that number will only rise with more triple-digit days.
A dry June with summer thunderstorms expected to arrive sooner than normal also means an increased risk for wildfires. This just sucks all around.
If you do have air conditioning or even open windows and a determined fan, please stay home. This heat is no joke. Stay hydrated and watch something that makes you feel cool. I’m not writing anything else. It’s too damn hot.
It took just a few hours for fraudsters to act after Moscow’s mayor announced this month that coronavirus vaccinations were compulsory for most of the city’s service-sector employees.
Accounts advertising the availability of fake coronavirus vaccination certificates suddenly appeared […]
A new black market was born with a deep potential clientele: the many Russians still hesitant to be vaccinated even amid a surge in coronavirus cases.
One bartender, who provided The Washington Post a copy of his private Instagram messages, sent a query to one account about the cost of a fraudulent vaccination certificate.
The response was immediate: The price was the equivalent of about $25 and the bartender just needed to provide his personal information. The bartender spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss engaging with an illegal operation.
The increase in the number of people selling bogus vaccination certificates comes as Moscow has ordered 60 percent of workers who interact with the public — teachers, taxi drivers, salespeople and others — to get vaccinated or get different jobs. Their employers are subject to hefty fines for noncompliance.
The new rules, which begin taking effect Monday, also require that restaurants and bars limit admission to people with a QR code confirming their vaccination or proof of a negative PCR coronavirus test within the previous three days. Moscow authorities have further warned that hospitals will deny routine medical care to the unvaccinated.
[…] Just 15 percent of Muscovites had been vaccinated, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on June 16. The vaccine rates for all of Russia is lower, 11.5 percent — below anywhere in Europe except North Macedonia, according to Our World in Data. […]
Let’s just say it outright: What has happened to Britney Spears never would have happened to the male version of Britney Spears.
In 24 minutes of devastating courtroom testimony this week, Spears described in graphic detail a rigidly circumscribed existence, the result of a conservatorship that’s been in place since 2008, after her infamous breakdown. The conservatorship, led by her father — and which Spears has for years been seeking to end, according to a report in the New York Times — has since then controlled nearly every aspect of her life — a life in which she, at least at times, couldn’t carry her own credit card, phone or passport without permission, even as she was forced to perform in lucrative Las Vegas entertainment residencies, sometimes against her will.
In court, Spears described a life with no privacy. She was told she couldn’t take a vacation on Maui unless she agreed to see a therapist in person twice a week. She couldn’t drive in her boyfriend’s car without permission. In a particularly chilling moment, she informed the judge that she would like to marry and have another child — she already has two — but that the conservatorship would not agree to let her remove her IUD.
This is no mere paternalism. It’s a violation of human rights. And it’s downright creepy.
Now think of the countless male stars who’ve engaged in public instances of crazed, drug-addicted or emotionally disturbed behavior. Within seconds, I can name Michael Jackson, Kanye West and Robert Downey Jr., who once got taken away by the police after he walked into a neighbor’s home, undressed and fell asleep in a child’s bed. When they called 911, you could hear him snoring in the background.
Then there’s Spears’s father, Jamie — a man so ragingly inappropriate, Spears’s ex-husband sought and received a restraining order to keep him away from his and Britney’s two sons.
Management theory has shown that men are often presumed competent and capable, no matter their past. We women, on the other hand, must prove ourselves over and over again: our competence, our financial acumen, our sanity. And conservatorships and involuntary commitments have throughout history been used to control women and seize control of their finances.
Spears — reasonably — would like to end what she considers the inappropriate control of her life and money. So far, no luck. “It’s been 13 years,” she told the court. “It makes no sense whatsoever for the state of California to sit back and literally watch me … make a living for so many people, and pay so many people … and be told, I’m not good enough.”
We can’t know that everything Spears told the court is accurate. But there’s plenty of evidence to suggest she’s not exaggerating. Spears pays her father’s legal expenses and bills. Her father gets a management fee on deals he commissions for her. His lawyers recently billed her $890,000 for four months of work.
Spears’s lawyer, whom she did not select, has earned more than $3 million since he began representing Spears in 2008. She says he never informed her she had the right to challenge the legal setup. We can only take her word for it, but it’s worth noting that the Times flagged Spears’s attorney for reporting Spears to her father’s lawyers for — wait for it — cursing once in front of her sons. (If this were a real parenting standard, I would have lost the ability to spend time with my children unsupervised within months of their birth.)
Spears, meanwhile, receives a $2,000-a-week allowance, even as her estate has grown to $60 million, and as she’s released multiple best-selling albums and performed in public hundreds if not thousands of times.
We don’t know the actual details of Spears’s mental health. But it seems highly unlikely the control exerted by her conservatorship is necessary or right.
[…] This supposed madwoman in the attic is supporting a cast of thousands as they make a mint by keeping their benefactor prisoner. It’s the stuff of a horror movie.
[…] Spears is 39 years old. She’s spent most of her adulthood captive to this arrangement. “I deserve to have a life,” she told the court. Indeed she does — even if that means she dates inappropriate men or trashes her fortune. It’s her life and ought to be her choice. […]
The death toll in the Florida condo collapse has risen to 9. Police have released the names of four victims of the collapse: Stacie Dawn Fang, 54; Antonio Lozano, 83; Gladys Lozano, 79; and Manuel LaFont, 54.
More than 150 people are still unaccounted for.The Army Corps of Engineers has been called in to help rescue efforts.
Many Native people were forced into the most undesirable areas of America, first by white settlers, then by the government. Now, parts of that marginal land are becoming uninhabitable.
In Chefornak, a Yu’pik village near the western coast of Alaska, the water is getting closer.
The thick ground, once frozen solid, is thawing. The village preschool, its blue paint peeling, sits precariously on wooden stilts in spongy marsh between a river and a creek. Storms are growing stronger. At high tide these days, water rises under the building, sometimes keeping out the children, ages 3 to 5. The shifting ground has warped the floor, making it hard to close the doors. Mold grows.
“I love our building,” said Eliza Tunuchuk, one of the teachers. “At the same time, I want to move.”
The village, where the median income is about $11,000 a year, sought help from the federal government to build a new school on dry land — one of dozens of buildings in Chefornak that must be relocated. But agency after agency offered variations on the same response: no.
From Alaska to Florida, Native Americans are facing severe climate challenges, the newest threat in a history marked by centuries of distress and dislocation. […]
In the Pacific Northwest, coastal erosion and storms are eating away at tribal land, forcing native communities to try to move inland. In the Southwest, severe drought means Navajo Nation is running out of drinking water. At the edge of the Ozarks, heirloom crops are becoming harder to grow, threatening to disconnect the Cherokee from their heritage.
Compounding the damage from its past decisions, the federal government has continued to neglect Native American communities, where substandard housing and infrastructure make it harder to cope with climate shocks.
The federal government is also less likely to help Native communities recover from extreme weather or help protect them against future calamities, a New York Times review of government data shows.
[…] Many tribes have been working to meet the challenges posed by the changing climate. And they have expressed hope that their concerns would be addressed by President Biden, who has committed to repairing the relationship with tribal nations and appointed Deb Haaland, the first Indigenous cabinet secretary, to run the Interior Department […]
The Federal Emergency Management Agency is less likely to grant requests for aid from native tribes recovering from disaster, compared to non-Native communities, according to FEMA data.
Native Americans are also less likely to have flood insurance, making it harder to rebuild. Of 574 federally recognized tribes, fewer than 50 participate in the National Flood Insurance Program, according to a review of FEMA data.
That’s partly because the federal government has completed flood maps for just one-third of federally recognized tribes, compared with the vast majority of counties. Flood maps can help tribal leaders more precisely understand their flood risks and prompt residents to purchase flood insurance. [And, flood insurance costs too much.
[…] Twice a week, Vivienne Beyal climbs into her GMC Sierra in Window Rock, a northern Arizona town that is the capital of Navajo Nation, and drives 45 minutes across the border into New Mexico. When she reaches the outskirts of Gallup, she joins something most Americans have never seen: a line for water.
[…] she waits as much as half an hour for her turn at the pump, then fills the four 55-gallon plastic barrels in the back of her truck.
[…] Most of the people in line with Ms. Beyal are also Navajo residents, crossing into New Mexico for drinking water. “You can show up whenever you want,” she said. “As long as you can pay for it.”
Ms. Beyal has lived in Window Rock for more than 30 years and once relied on the community well near her home. But after years of drought, the water steadily turned brown. Then last year, it ran dry. […]
Like much of the American West, Navajo Nation, the largest tribe in the country, has been in a prolonged drought since the 1990s […]
[…] unlike nearby communities like Gallup and Flagstaff, Navajo Nation lacks an adequate municipal water supply. About one-third of the tribe lives without running water.
The federal government says the groundwater in the eastern section of Navajo Nation that feeds its communal wells is “rapidly depleting.”
“This is really textbook structural racism,” said George McGraw, chief executive officer of DigDeep, a nonprofit group that delivers drinking water to homes that need it. Navajo Nation has the greatest concentration of those households in the lower 48 states, he said.
[…] Mr. Biden’s most ambitious climate proposal, written into his $2 trillion infrastructure plan, included just two references to on tribal lands: unspecified money for water projects and relocation of the most vulnerable tribes. […]
Exit polls say conservative incumbent Renaud Muselier has secured a decisive win in the key battleground region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, which was the far right’s main hope of winning a region.
Translation: Exit polling suggests teh le penazis decisively lost in my region. Since this was the nazi’s only realistic hope of a “win”, the apparent (decisive) lost is not only reassuring, but means they still “control” nothing more than a few locales (Perpignan, here on the Mediterranean coast, near the border with Spain, perhaps being the most significant (plus a disproportionate horde in the EU Parliament)).
Former Attorney General Bill Barr reportedly knew former President Trump’s claims of election fraud were “bullshit,” but gave the green light for prosecutors to investigate the unsubstantiated claims because he wanted to appease the then-President who refused to concede the election.
Barr’s dismissal of Trump’s election fraud falsehoods was reported in an excerpt of the book “Betrayal” by ABC News reporter Jon Karl published in The Atlantic on Sunday.
The week after the 2020 presidential election in November, Barr permitted prosecutors to investigate “substantial allegations” of vote irregularities that “could potentially impact the outcome” of the election. At the time, the then-attorney general gave no indication publicly that he broke with Trump on his bogus claims of widespread election fraud.
Barr, however, revealed to Karl that he had already suspected that evidence that would overturn the election results was a long shot. According to Karl, Barr expected Trump to lose the election to Biden and was unfazed when his expectation came true.
Barr also anticipated that Trump would confront him about the unsubstantiated claims of election fraud, and wanted to tell the then-President that he had investigated them and found no evidence to back up the falsehoods.
“My attitude was: It was put-up or shut-up time,” Barr told Karl. “If there was evidence of fraud, I had no motive to suppress it.”
Barr claimed that he suspected all along that Trump’s election fraud falsehoods were “all bullshit.”
The former attorney general also debunked false claims by Trump and his allies that voting machines nationwide switched votes from Trump to Biden.
“We realized from the beginning it was just bullshit,” Barr told Karl. “It’s a counting machine, and they save everything that was counted. So you just reconcile the two. There had been no discrepancy reported anywhere, and I’m still not aware of any discrepancy.”
Barr also recalled then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) repeatedly demanding him to publicly push back against Trump’s bogus claims. McConnell reportedly argued that the fraud falsehoods Trump espoused were damaging to the country and hurt the GOP’s chances of winning the two Georgia Senate runoff races in January that would determine the balance of the Senate.
Karl reported that McConnell confirmed his exchange with Barr.
“Look, we need the president in Georgia,” McConnell told Barr, according to Karl. “And so we cannot be frontally attacking him right now. But you’re in a better position to inject some reality into this situation. You are really the only one who can do it.”
“I understand that,” Barr told McConnell, according to Karl. “And I’m going to do it at the appropriate time.”
The most interesting part of the piece, or the most lurid and melodramatic anyway, was where Barr says yeah that’s what I said and Trump blew up. “You must hate Trump! You must hate Trump!” he said. Direct quote. Third person. Which is fucking weird.
——————
Wanting to appease that thing is why we’re in this shitstorm now. Remember how the enablers said to give it time to process its loss and what could it hurt? It’s now on the road continuing its whine fest.
————–
while I’m sure Mitch’s donors would have been eased by Barr acknowledging reality in public, I somehow think Barr’s word doesn’t hold a lot of sway with the zip-tie insurrectionist crowd.
—————–
“I understand that,” Barr told McConnell, according to Karl. “And I’m going to do it at the appropriate time.”
Well it’s a shame the time wasn’t right before the mob stormed the capitol
———————-
So when does Barr do a round of interviews on the RWNJ networks to call bullshit on the election theft claims?
Never. He’s hiding and hoping people remember that he still has a license to practice law. He’s seen what’s happening to Rudy.
—————-
“Former Attorney General Bill Barr reportedly knew former President Trump’s claims of election fraud were “bullshit,” but gave the green light for prosecutors to investigate the unsubstantiated claims because he wanted to appease the then-President who refused to concede the election.”
Nice use of DOJ resources and federal tax funds there
—————-
What is that thing you can do when the president demands you violate your oath of office in service of bullshit to damage the country? Oh yeah, “resign”.
Christ, what a lot of self-serving tripe that book is.
[…] according to William Barr, William Barr is great. He’s always the bravest and most integrity-filled person in the room, doing the right things despite pressure on all sides and so on and so forth. […] What might be news is that the put-upon Barr believes the time is right to mete out a bit of punishment on everyone else.
[…] Barr wants you to know that Sen. Mitch McConnell is a gutless coward. Barr is willing to recount several conversations with McConnell in which McConnell, who in public spent most of the post-election period dodging questions about Trump’s increasingly outrageous and dangerous claims claims, pleaded with Barr to be the one who contradicted Trump by telling the world that Trump’s election “fraud” claims were utter bullshit.
McConnell told Barr in mid-November that Trump’s hoaxes were “damaging” to both the country and to the Republican Party—no guesses on which of those was the more pressing concern, for Mitch—but Republicans “cannot be frontally attacking [Trump] right now,” because Mitch and the others were trying to keep on Trump’s good side for fear an open declaration of Biden’s victory would result in an angry Trump sabotaging Republican election chances in the two Georgia Senate runoff races. Barr was “in a better position to inject some reality” into Trump’s claims of election fraud.
Barr replied, according to Barr, that he was “going to do it at the appropriate time.” So here we have one slightly interesting tidbit, then: Even in Barr’s own accounting, he was urged to combat Trump’s “damaging” election hoaxes and could only muster up an assurance that he would be getting right on that … eventually. After it played out a bit more. In Barr’s account, he was bravely using the Department of Justice to gather evidence of which claims might be true or might be false; in the actual news stories of each day, the claims being peddled by Trump’s minions were brazenly fraudulent to begin with.
The second tidbit is that William Barr is, along with multiple other people inside Trump’s inner circle, perfectly willing to tell Karl that after Barr eventually did publicly nix Trump’s claims Trump became quite batshit unhinged […] Trump had “the eyes and mannerism of a madman,” sez a source, which we can probably take to mean “even more than usual,” and Barr compared him to the madman brigadier general of Dr. Strangelove.
“You must hate Trump. You must hate Trump,” Trump is said to have told Barr, which is a pretty dead-on example of a malignant narcissist in the throes of a decompensating episode. You there, who have asserted that reality is something other than what I have claimed it to be? You must have been plotting against me all along.
Great, super. So again we have a situation in which everyone around Trump was pretty damn certain he had gone off the rails, jumped the trolley, sprung a brain-leak, and had become devoid of marbles but nobody in government, from Secret Service on down, was willing to toss him in a burlap sack, tie it shut, and declare that Mike Pence was taking charge because the sitting president had developed a serious case of bananapants.
The rest is not of note. Barr says Barr acted with integrity, despite everyone else in Trump’s orbit pressuring him to help topple the national government. Barr says Mitch was a spineless weasel who wanted someone else to save the country from potential violence so Mitch wouldn’t have to. Barr says Trump was an unhinged, raging monster but Barr, having Integrity and stuff, was loyally willing to stay and then two weeks later was forced to resign because of the same Integrity after Trump continued to push the same hoaxes and the likely consequences of those acts began to become more and more concrete.
How do we sum all this up, then, properly taking into account Barr’s actual record of assisting Trump in hiding evidence from Congress, in fishing expeditions against Trump’s prime political foe, in using the resources of his office to help discredit American intelligence officials and in assisting Trump’s government-wide purge of inspector generals, watchdogs, and other whistleblowers—all the petty corruptions William Barr didn’t see fit to highlight, in his own interpretation of those last days? It appears that William Barr decided after Donald Trump’s loss that no matter what else William Barr was willing to do for conservatism, he wasn’t going to go to jail for Trump or get caught up in actual crossfire if Trump succeeded in goading violent revolution.
Not so much “integrity,” then, as a decision that he wasn’t going to go down with a sinking ship. […] Barr has more damage control to do than most.
[…] according to William Barr, William Barr is great. He’s always the bravest and most integrity-filled person in the room, doing the right things despite pressure on all sides and so on and so forth. […] What might be news is that the put-upon Barr believes the time is right to mete out a bit of punishment on everyone else.
[…] Barr wants you to know that Sen. Mitch McConnell is a gutless coward. Barr is willing to recount several conversations with McConnell in which McConnell, who in public spent most of the post-election period dodging questions about Trump’s increasingly outrageous and dangerous claims claims, pleaded with Barr to be the one who contradicted Trump by telling the world that Trump’s election “fraud” claims were utter bullshit.
McConnell told Barr in mid-November that Trump’s hoaxes were “damaging” to both the country and to the Republican Party—no guesses on which of those was the more pressing concern, for Mitch—but Republicans “cannot be frontally attacking [Trump] right now,” because Mitch and the others were trying to keep on Trump’s good side for fear an open declaration of Biden’s victory would result in an angry Trump sabotaging Republican election chances in the two Georgia Senate runoff races. Barr was “in a better position to inject some reality” into Trump’s claims of election fraud.
Barr replied, according to Barr, that he was “going to do it at the appropriate time.” So here we have one slightly interesting tidbit, then: Even in Barr’s own accounting, he was urged to combat Trump’s “damaging” election hoaxes and could only muster up an assurance that he would be getting right on that … eventually. After it played out a bit more. In Barr’s account, he was bravely using the Department of Justice to gather evidence of which claims might be true or might be false; in the actual news stories of each day, the claims being peddled by Trump’s minions were brazenly fraudulent to begin with.
The second tidbit is that William Barr is, along with multiple other people inside Trump’s inner circle, perfectly willing to tell Karl that after Barr eventually did publicly nix Trump’s claims Trump became quite batshit unhinged […] Trump had “the eyes and mannerism of a madman,” sez a source, which we can probably take to mean “even more than usual,” and Barr compared him to the madman brigadier general of Dr. Strangelove.
“You must hate Trump. You must hate Trump,” Trump is said to have told Barr, which is a pretty dead-on example of a malignant narcissist in the throes of a decompensating episode. You there, who have asserted that reality is something other than what I have claimed it to be? You must have been plotting against me all along.
Great, super. So again we have a situation in which everyone around Trump was pretty damn certain he had gone off the rails, jumped the trolley, sprung a brain-leak, and had become devoid of marbles but nobody in government, from Secret Service on down, was willing to toss him in a burlap sack, tie it shut, and declare that Mike Pence was taking charge because the sitting president had developed a serious case of bananapants.
The rest is not of note. Barr says Barr acted with integrity, despite everyone else in Trump’s orbit pressuring him to help topple the national government. Barr says Mitch was a spineless weasel who wanted someone else to save the country from potential violence so Mitch wouldn’t have to. Barr says Trump was an unhinged, raging monster but Barr, having Integrity and stuff, was loyally willing to stay and then two weeks later was forced to resign because of the same Integrity after Trump continued to push the same hoaxes and the likely consequences of those acts began to become more and more concrete.
How do we sum all this up, then, properly taking into account Barr’s actual record of assisting Trump in hiding evidence from Congress, in fishing expeditions against Trump’s prime political foe, in using the resources of his office to help discredit American intelligence officials and in assisting Trump’s government-wide purge of inspector generals, watchdogs, and other whistleblowers—all the petty corruptions William Barr didn’t see fit to highlight, in his own interpretation of those last days? It appears that William Barr decided after Donald Trump’s loss that no matter what else William Barr was willing to do for conservatism, he wasn’t going to go to jail for Trump or get caught up in actual crossfire if Trump succeeded in goading violent revolution.
Not so much “integrity,” then, as a decision that he wasn’t going to go down with a sinking ship. […] Barr has more damage control to do than most.
A “heat dome” has settled over the Pacific Northwest, bringing with it record-breaking temperatures and health hazards. The high-pressure dome has parked over much of Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia, trapping heat “like a lid on a pot,” writes National Geographic. And across the West, more than 20 million people are living in areas with a heat advisory or warning, including much of California, Nevada, Idaho, and Montana.
“This is a heatwave that has left meteorological observers in awe, and even caused some of us to question the validity of these extreme model predictions,” notes climate scientist Daniel Swain. “This will most likely become the singularly most intense heatwave in modern history for much of the region, featuring temperatures that will probably shatter all-time record high temperatures in many cities and towns.”
Portland reached a record-breaking 108 degrees on Saturday, and Seattle is expected to reach 111 on Monday. While its historic daytime highs are alarming, this heat wave is particularly dangerous because the nighttime temperatures are so high. (In Portland, tonight’s low is in the 80s.) Without cooler nights, people aren’t able to recover from the physical taxation of being in heat during the day. This creates a particularly dangerous situation in areas like Seattle, where most homes don’t have air conditioning. […]
Among the most vulnerable groups to the heat wave are farmworkers, who can’t heed safety advisories to stay out of the sun. It is peak cherry season in Washington; ten million pounds of cherries are being harvested each day, according to the United Farm Workers.
Farmworkers in Washington and California are, in theory, protected by laws that allow for paid breaks in shaded areas and access to water. (The laws aren’t always enforced, and haven’t stopped several deaths from heat stress in recent years.) Most states don’t have heat stress laws, notes the Natural Resources Defense Council. […]
Wonkette: “Australian Christian School Kids Get Super Creepy Romantic Advice”
It’s easy to assume that America has the market cornered on extremely disturbing Christian abstinence lessons. After all, we’ve all heard about (or perhaps even experienced) those exercises where children are told that people (especially women) who have sex before marriage are like pre-chewed chewing gum, tape that has become unsticky, a rose without petals or my personal favorite, a bucket of their classmate’s spit. Plus remember those father-daughter purity balls? YEESH.
But Australia might be giving us a run for our money.
A bunch of Year 10 students in a Christian Studies class at St. Luke’s Grammar School on the Northern Beaches of Sydney were given very different romance/dating lessons depending on their gender. The girls were given a bunch of reading materials on why it is so very important for them to remain virgins until marriage and also on “how Satan provides opportunities for fleeting sexual encounters.” (Thanks, Satan!)
Those girls were not too thrilled when they found out that the boys were given a different exercise, which they later referred to as “build-a-[B-word],” in which they were told to create their ideal woman from a list of “qualities.” Each quality was given a set number of points, with virginity and looks being worth more than having a sense of humor or being adventurous.
The exercise, via Sydney Morning Herald:
You have 25 points to allocate on qualities that you would look for in a girl. Now this is supposed to be for a lasting relationship. Listed below are a number of qualities, each marked with a point system. You have to prioritise what you think is important
– Six points: popular, loyalty, good looking/attractive, intelligent, strong Christian, kind and considerate, virgin, trustworthy
– Five points: physically fit, easy to talk to, fun/sense of humour, wise
– Four points: sporty/sexy, goes to church, honest/doesn’t lie or cheat, similar interests to you, friendly
– Three points: well dressed/groomed, artistic, good manners, good pedigree, ambitious goals, hard-working, great kisser, owns a car
– Two points: right height, good at school, brave – stands up for rights, socially competent
– One point: favourite hair colour, favourite eye colour, has money, sincere and serious, generous, adventurous, similar beliefs, cares for the world, comfortable even in quiet moments
Honestly, I am actually a little confused by this exercise and what it was even meant to convey. It’s clear which characteristics have more value here, but the 25 point thing does not make a lot of sense because one would have to pick fewer of those things. So like, are they saying they have to choose between someone being a virgin and someone being intelligent or kind and considerate? Where is it that they were going with this?
Following the outrage over the two lessons, the school’s headmaster, Geoff Lancaster sent out a note to parents apologizing and also telling them
Mr Lancaster wrote to parents after school on Friday, apologising and saying he had spoken to the teacher – a member of the Anglican clergy – about his poor judgment in using the material to guide the class discussion on relationships.
“He is very sorry for the offence he has caused and saddened to think that the way this discussion was framed has upset our students,” the letter said.
“This term the students have been looking at the complex issues of consent and toxic masculinity and contrasting the negative images portrayed in society with god’s plan for strong, healthy relationships where people respect each other as equals.
Who in the what now? They’re learning about toxic masculinity and consent and equality and part of this is somehow that the girls are learning about the importance of their virginity and how Satan is out there trying to trick them into sex, and boys are learning that virginity is one of the most valuable qualities a woman can possess but also that owning a car is a more valuable attribute than caring for the world?
[…] While it seems a little like this Headmaster fella is just spitting out random words he found on some kind of wokeness glossary he found on the Internet, I guess the response is better than what it would have been had this happened in the States. Because in that case, the school absolutely would not have apologized and the offending teacher would get a million dollars from a GoFundMe and become a professional right-wing grifter, talking about how they got canceled just for sharing their hymen-related opinions.
blfsays
Follow-up to @181, in the 2nd round election to “the regions” teh le penazis lost everywhere, and mostly went backwards. Locally, in my village, on a c.35% turnout, teh le penazis got c.44% and the conservatives c.56%, almost identical to the vote in the region as a whole. As has almost always been the case when teh le penazis are in contention, the poorly-placed other parties withdraw to give the best-placed non-nazi a clear run, a tactic called front républicain, which apparently “dates back to 1885, when the monarchist and Bonapartist opposition recorded high scores in the first round of the legislative elections, and candidates who supported the Republic came together and were able to win a majority of seats.”
Scarcely a day goes by without news to remind us that [führer Marine] Le Pen’s purported cleansing of the party in the last decade has been incompetent, lazy or cosmetic.
Philippe Vardon, the campaign manager for the far right in the Nice-Marseille [Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region] area was a leading light in a string of racist splinter groups until 2013. He was once filmed singing neo-Nazi songs and organised the distribution of pork soup to the homeless, to exclude and anger Muslims. […]
[…] Muselier defeated Mariani by a margin of some 10 percent.
Critics have accused Mariani of being an admirer of authoritarians such as Russian President Vladimir Putin and Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad. Prime Minister Jean Castex warned last week that a Mariani victory would be “very serious” for the country.
Working horses not only outperform tractors on tricky terrain but provide a natural way to improve health of soil and crops
[…The owner of the L’Affût wine estate in Sologne, north-central France, Isabelle] Pangault is one of at least 300 winegrowers across mainland France and Corsica using draught horses identified during a recent study, Equivigne.
The study was carried out by the French Horse and Riding Institute (IFCE), in partnership with the French Wine and Vine Institute (IFV), and its results were presented last month at a conference on draught horses in viticulture.
Clémence Bénézet, who co-authored the study, has researched the working horse industry for the past decade. “Draught horse professionals, in viticulture in particular, were economically successful and witnessed a demand greater than the supply due to a lack of service providers,” she says of research she carried out in 2017. “There was therefore potential for this sector to develop.”
Equivigne sought to gain a better understanding of the recent re-emergence of working horses in viticulture. It found that technical problems such as terrain (or in Pangault’s case, old vines [planted in 1894]) was one reason to use horses, but soil health was the leading factor. Horses offer an alternative to chemical herbicides and compact the soil less than a tractor.
For this reason, Pangault now plans to use horses on a plot with newly planted grapevines. “The objective is to avoid compacting the soil from the beginning of the life of the plot,” she explains. This will lead to better soil structure and, consequently, healthier plants.
During last year’s harvest, Pangault hired [draught horse] Urbanie to pull a container ahead of grape-pickers. Although not a cheap option, she chose it to spare the grape-pickers being exposed to the fumes and noise of a tractor.
Her decision paid off in ways she had not anticipated. “I cried when I saw it. The atmosphere was completely different when the horse was there: people were laughing, they were working at the same rhythm as one another. Horses really have this magical power,” she says.
Pangault is in the process of converting her estate to organic […]. Of the estates using horses that responded to its survey, 68% were certified organic […], figures much higher than the national average. Working with horses ties in with an environmental mindset.
[…]
Projects examining the value of grazing sheep in vineyards — sometimes called vitipastoralisme in French — have surfaced in the past few years. The findings prompted many regions to encourage farmers to take up the practice.
Sheep are already very present in vineyards belonging to Châteauneuf-du-Pape AOC, an appellation covering 3,200 hectares: in 2020, 37 estates used sheep across more than 400 hectares.
Châteauneuf-du-Pape AOC is not a million kilometres away from my village, and its wines are commonly drunk here. I very probably have a few bottles here in the lair. Some might not have yet been emptied.
Elsewhere, a three-year research project by the Dordogne’s chamber of agriculture concluded that, for sheep farmers, this method provides access to a free source of food from November to March.
It found benefits for winegrowers, too: by using sheep as an alternative to chemical herbicides, soil and water quality improves, and the practice encourages the growth of nitrogen-fixing plants, such as clover.
Some regions have already sought to foster partnerships between vineyard owners and farmers, including in Costières de Nîmes. [… Gard’s agriculture] chamber created an interactive map, Qui Veut Mon Herbe? (Who wants my grass?), to allow winegrowers, among others, to connect with sheep farmers. The map is being expanded to go from covering about 15,000 hectares to about 50,000.
[ ]
The horses and sheep have to be moved around — presumably, often by truck — but that is presumably less environmentally-damaging than a tractor.
Unperturbed by the kooks, quacks and dangerous political hacks, the [“white-coat army” of scientists and physicians] has gone about their necessary, deliberate, empirical work to engineer vaccines that inoculate us from the lethal consequences of an indiscriminate virus that has caused such lasting pain, suffering and loss.
Save for the kooks, quacks and dangerous political hacks, a largely relieved and grateful world has responded with this simple, yet powerful admission: In science we trust.
[…]
If and when the world can celebrate victory, it will be, in large measure, because sentient citizens acknowledged the intractable doom we would have faced if stupidity, greed, and selfishness had trumped knowledge, sacrifice and pursuit of the common good.
The opinion column is a call for people to do the same about the climate disaster. A related snippet:
Despite what the kooks, quacks and dangerous political hacks say, this is what the established science tells us will happen soon if we do not change the way we live, work and behave in a fundamental, comprehensive way: The Earth may become uninhabitable.
The grim alarm was raised again last week by an AFP report on a draft copy of a voluminous study being prepared by the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that is slated to be made public in early 2022.
Unsurprisingly, the draft report’s dire prophesy failed to pierce the near blanket preoccupation among TV and newspaper editors with other, more frivolous, news.
In any event, the 4,000-page draft report’s central findings make clear that the time to “worry” over the ruinous, irreversible effects of climate change was over long ago. It is time to adopt a more appropriate attitude to the unfolding and impending damage that will be exacted on Earth if we continue to delay, dither and deny: Panic.
[… I]n a prescient address at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in 2019, the indomitable teenage climate activist, Greta Thunberg, issued an urgent warning and candid call to action using frank, unembroidered language.
“Our house is on fire,” Thunberg said. “I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. Then, I want you to act. I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if the house was on fire because it is.”
In 2020’s wake, Republicans are focusing heavily on secretary of state offices, even stripping one Democratic official of key election-related powers.
There was a time when secretary of state was a relatively obscure position. At the state level […] these officials are largely focused on administrative and bureaucratic responsibilities, which in turn has traditionally kept their names from front pages.
That is no longer the case. In the wake of Donald Trump’s 2020 defeat, far-right Republicans are running for secretary of state offices across much of the country — and they’re not being especially shy about their eagerness to politicize their roles. Politico recently reported:
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 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.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R), for example, has become a Trump target for not being corrupt in 2020, so he’s facing a primary challenge from Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.), one of Congress’ most far-right members who’s spent recent months rejecting the legitimacy of his state’s election results.
The problem is not limited to Georgia. In Arizona, a Republican secretary of state is promising voters that if he oversees state elections, he’ll “make sure that Arizona is the Red State it REALLY is!” Election observers have similar concerns about GOP candidates running for secretary of state in Nevada and Michigan.
Meanwhile, some Republican legislators are also targeting secretaries of state who are still in office. The New York Times reported:
The Republican-controlled State Legislature in Arizona voted Thursday to revoke the Democratic secretary of state’s legal authority in election-related lawsuits, handing that power instead to the Republican attorney general.
The article added that the Arizona measure approved last week gives exclusive control over election lawsuits the Republican attorney general, “but only through Jan. 2, 2023 — when the winners of the next elections for both offices would be about to take power. The aim is to ensure that the authority given to [state Attorney General Mark Brnovich] would not transfer to any Democrat who won the next race for attorney general.”
How subtle.
A Washington Post analysis added, “Basically, Arizona Republicans are moving to temporarily transfer this authority from a Democrat to a Republican for one election cycle only (at which point they could seemingly decide, depending upon who controls each office, who should be in charge of this).” […]
On infrastructure, Mitch McConnell is making absurd demands of Democratic leaders. They’d be wise to ignore him.
In early April, it was already obvious how the infrastructure debate would unfold. President Biden was clearly committed to trying to work out a bipartisan compromise with Republicans, with the realization that it’d be necessary to pursue other progressive goals through a separate package.
In fact, this was the course GOP leaders encouraged the president to take. Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), a member of the Senate Republican leadership, told Fox News in early April, “My advice to the White House has been, take that bipartisan win, do this in a more traditional infrastructure way and then if you want to force the rest of the package on Republicans in the Congress and the country, you can certainly do that.”
The Missouri senator was hardly alone. Several prominent Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), publicly acknowledged the two-track approach to infrastructure: Democrats would work on one bipartisan bill, while simultaneously preparing a related bill that would be pursued — without the GOP’s backing — through the budget reconciliation process.
And so, when the White House and a group of Senate Republicans reached an agreement last week on an infrastructure plan, Democratic leaders said exactly what everyone expected them to say: the majority party would move forward with their infrastructure plans by passing the bipartisan package and a reconciliation package.
GOP leaders were outraged — or more accurately, GOP leaders pretended to be outraged. The fact that Democrats planned to connect the dual tracks, Republicans said, was an unforgivable slight that threatened to derail the entire initiative.
The tantrum clearly wasn’t rooted in good faith. What’s more, practically everyone seemed to realize that the tantrum wasn’t rooted in good faith. And yet, much of the political world went along with the theatrics anyway, as if there was some degree of sincerity in Republican complaints about Biden and Democratic leaders having gone too far.
Eager to prevent the bipartisan deal from completely unraveling, the White House walked back the comments that GOP senators pretended not to understand.
“My comments also created the impression that I was issuing a veto threat on the very plan I had just agreed to, which was certainly not my intent,” Biden said in a statement. “I intend to pursue the passage of that plan, which Democrats and Republicans agreed to on Thursday, with vigor,” Biden added. “It would be good for the economy, good for our country, good for our people. I fully stand behind it without reservation or hesitation.”
For now, Senate Republicans involved in the negotiations are saying the bipartisan agreement is still likely to pass, thanks largely to Biden’s clarification. But for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the presidential statement wasn’t good enough.
[McConnell said] he is “calling on” Biden to urge House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) to “follow his lead.” … “Unless Leader Schumer and Speaker Pelosi walk-back their threats that they will refuse to send the president a bipartisan infrastructure bill unless they also separately pass trillions of dollars for unrelated tax hikes, wasteful spending, and Green New Deal socialism, then President Biden’s walk-back of his veto threat would be a hollow gesture,” McConnell wrote.
Of course, McConnell is poised to oppose both packages anyway. In fact, his posturing is little more than a not-at-all-veiled effort to disrupt the entire process.
Democratic leaders would be wise not to take his demands seriously. For one thing, they don’t work for the minority leader. For another, even if Pelosi and Schumer were to scramble to make McConnell happy, he’d simply move on to his next steps to prevent any progress on the president’s infrastructure priorities.
President Joe Biden quietly hit a milestone on Thursday: With the help of Senate Democrats, he has confirmed more lifetime federal judges than any president has done in more than 50 years by this point in their first six months in office. With the Senate’s latest confirmation of Candace Jackson-Akiwumi to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, Biden has confirmed a total of seven judges […]
By this point in their presidencies, Donald Trump had confirmed two lifetime federal judges (one of whom was a Supreme Court justice, Neil Gorsuch), Barack Obama had confirmed zero, George W. Bush had confirmed zero, Bill Clinton had confirmed zero, George H.W. Bush had confirmed four, Ronald Reagan had confirmed zero, and Jimmy Carter had confirmed four. […]
Commentary:
[…] As of this morning, there are 76 vacancies on the federal bench — more if we include the Court of International Trade and the Court of Federal Claims — and that number is likely to be around 100 later this year as sitting judges retire and take senior status. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), a senior member of the Judiciary Committee, has said filling every vacancy by the end of 2022 is his party’s “very prudent goal.”
That’s an ambitious target, which will require a concerted effort on the part of Democratic leaders, but so far, the relevant players appear to be taking the right steps in a smart direction.
Postscript: For what it’s worth, the Senate Democratic majority could curtail their August break and spend that time confirming federal judges, just as Republicans did a few years ago. All Senate Democratic leaders would have to do is keep working and making the most of their precious time.
Holy moly. Our utterly deranged most recent Former President just released an absolutely crazed, delusional, lie filled, rambling lengthy attack on William Barr for telling the simple truth about Trump’s insane election fraud lies. The man is unraveling mentally more by the hour.
Donald Trump has some words to say about Bill Barr and Mitch McConnell (“another beauty”). It’s a rather lengthy statement that seems to confirm the rage he feels toward his former AG … here are a couple excerpts: [excerpts available at the link]
Why is Trump undermining democracy while claiming to be its champion? Because in his mind, democracy is whatever he says it is.
The ostensible point of Donald Trump’s campaign rally on Saturday night was to support Max Miller, a former White House aide who’s running against Rep. Anthony Gonzalez (R-Ohio) in a primary next year. Gonzalez was one of 10 House Republicans to vote to hold Trump accountable for his actions on Jan. 6, and the former president is eager to exact revenge.
But to think Trump would headline a campaign event and focus on someone else’s candidacy is to forget everything we know about him. As the Associated Press noted, the former president predictably spent much of his rambling remarks targeting the nation’s democratic foundations.
“This was the scam of the century and this was the crime of the century,” Trump told a crowd of thousands at Ohio’s Lorain County Fairgrounds, not far from Cleveland…. “The 2020 presidential election was rigged,” he told the crowd, which at one point broke into a “Trump won!” chant. “We won that election in a landslide.” In reality, President Joe Biden’s victory was thoroughly validated by the officials who reported finding no systemic fraud.
Such remarks are not simply an attack on Biden’s presidency; they’re part of an ongoing attack against democracy itself. A failed former president, having been roundly rejected by his own country’s electorate, has decided to target public confidence in the United States’ electoral system to advance his ego and ambitions. His plan has been unsubtle for months: Trump expects his followers to believe that there was a mysterious and systemic crime, orchestrated across several states, that has put an illegitimate pretender in the White House.
[…] “I’m the one that’s trying to save American democracy.”
It’s easy to roll one’s eyes in response to such ugly nonsense. For an unhinged politician to simultaneously undermine democracy while falsely claiming he’s trying to save democracy is obviously insane.
The fact that the contradiction is becoming the new norm in Trump Land only adds insult to injury.
But let’s not brush past the twisted rationale behind the former president’s pitch: Trump sees himself as democracy’s champion because he’s convinced himself his defeat was illegitimate. […]
It’s an argument rooted in the idea that democracy is whatever Donald Trump says it is. […]
I saw snippets of last night’s grotesque spectacle in Ohio. It was bonkers. At one point The Former Guy said Democrats had tried to take Thomas Jefferson off Mount Rushmore. […]
And he gave The Pillow Man a shoutout from the dais. And his face was desperately crying out for a squeegee. There was even an impromptu “Lock her up!” chant.
Ah, the good old days.
Mostly, though, it was a nonstop salvo of thoroughly debunked election conspiracy fantasies […]
In other words, pretty much exactly what you’d expect.
But I’m not here to share an “entertaining” series of video clips from last night’s dead-ender convention. Because there’s only one clip you need to see.
This … [Video of bored MAGAs leaving in droves during the speech]
Yup, those are MAGAs leaving the Branch Covidian compound in droves.
Wish “the former guy” could be forgotten? That’s not an option. Because justice must be served if we are to move on. Because Donald J. Trump remains an active danger to our democracy.
Wonkette: “Michael Flynn Stars In QAnon Election Fraud Doc By Guy Who Thinks Aliens Did 9/11”
On Saturday, a new documentary about how the election was stolen from poor Donald Trump premiered online and in person at an Arizona church, with many members of the Arizona GOP in attendance.
Titled The Deep Rig, it stars disgraced Gen. Michael Flynn, Patrick Byrne (founder and former CEO of Overstock.com), former Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett and “Cyber Ninja” Doug Logan, whose identity and voice was obscured throughout the movie, being referred to only as “Anon.” They revealed this at the premiere, so it’s not clear what the point of that was. Probably they just thought an anonymous guy talking about how he just knows the CIA was behind this whole thing seemed more legit than “Known QAnon guy whose company is auditing the Arizona ballots.”
[…] Via Arizona Mirror:
“If we don’t fix our election integrity now, we may no longer have a democracy,” Logan says towards the end of the film. Logan also said in the film, before he was unmasked, that he believed that the CIA or former members of the intelligence agency may be involved with “disinformation” around election fraud. Logan did not provide any evidence to back up this assertion.
During a question-and-answer session with the audience at Dream City Church in Phoenix, where the event was held, another member of the audit team, Bob Hughes, said he designed the paper evaluation system used by audit workers to examine the paper of the ballots for alleged anomalies such as bamboo fibers and evidence that the ballots were filled out by machines.
The auditors are looking for “bamboo fibers” they believe would be evidence the ballots were filled out in China, because they apparently think everything in China is covered in a thin film of bamboo fibers, or that they were packed into shipping boxes by pandas. It’s unclear how they’re testing for this, but given that fiber evidence is junk science anyway, it probably doesn’t matter.
Given the involvement of Michael Flynn, it is not too surprising that a bunch of QAnon people were also involved, including the controversial BabyQ, who is actually not very popular among most QAnon believers, who tend to think he is a fake and a grifter. Which, to their credit, he clearly is.
Before the film started, the host of the event, known QAnon believer Ann Vandersteel, introduced Phoenix native Austin Steinbart. Steinbart is sometimes referred to in the QAnon community as “BabyQ” and many of his followers believe him to be Q himself.
Steinbart, who was introduced as the “Az Deep Rig Field Operative,” has told his followers that his future self is sending messages back in time so that present-day Steinbart can reveal the truth.
In April 2020, Steinbart was arrested for posting medical images and information online of NFL players that he was able to obtain while getting a brain scan. Last year, he got caught using a synthetic penis in an attempt to pass a drug test related to the April arrest.
[…] While the only way any of us would be able to see it would be if we were willing to pay $45 to watch it online, or $500 to screen it with a bunch of our closest and most ignorant friends, we can watch the trailer — which is probably all a normal person would be able to stand anyway. [Available at the link. Not worth watching.]
My personal favorite part of the trailer is where they show noted psychic and Democratic party insider Bernie Sanders telling Jimmy Fallon that the way he thinks things are going to go is that at first it’s going to look like Donald Trump won, but then all of the mail-in votes are going to come in and it’s going to turn out that Biden won, and then Trump will say the whole thing was rigged and the election was stolen from him.
Now some of us might hear that and go, “Oh, common sense, because Democrats, who tend to care whether other people live or die, tended to use mail-in votes so as to avoid the spread of COVID.” But not the people in charge of this documentary. Clearly they are reading this as the Democrats’ plan to steal the election all along, which Bernie Sanders — with whom they trusted with this information because they love him so much — went on “The Tonight Show” and REVEALED, like a cartoon villain speaking to his loosely tied up nemeses. It’s all just very plausible.
This masterpiece film’s director, Richards, has previously directed two other documentaries. One, The Cosmic Secret, touches on such riveting topics as “How to make ESP work for you,” “Atlantis Under Ice,” pyramid power and some general ancient aliens stuff. The other, Above Majestic, posits that aliens did 9/11, and features an interview with a man who spent 20 years on the moon before being age-regressed and sent back to earth.
We’re gonna watch the trailer for that one, too. […]
This is all just some very legit work from some extremely not-delusional people. It sure would be too bad if Republicans across the country saw this and decided not to vote because of how Democrats, pandas and aliens will just figure out some way to steal it from them.
The Supreme Court declined to hear a legal battle over the rights of transgender students on Monday, handing a victory to Gavin Grimm over the Virginia school board that denied him the right to use the boys’ restroom.
As is its custom, the court did not say why it was rejecting the appeal of the Gloucester County school district. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. said they would have accepted the case.
The court’s decision not to take up the case does not establish a national precedent, nor does it signal agreement with the lower court.
Legal battles involving transgender rights are being fought in lower courts, and the Supreme Court often lets such issues percolate before weighing in. A direct split among the regional appeals courts is often what prompts the justices to enter the debate.
[…] “I am glad that my years-long fight to have my school see me for who I am is over,” Grimm said in the statement, adding, “Trans youth deserve to use the bathroom in peace without being humiliated and stigmatized by their own school boards and elected officials.”
Lytton, a village in British Columbia, became the first place in Canada to ever record a temperature over 113 degrees Fahrenheit on Sunday — and experts are predicting even hotter weather to come.
The temperature in Lytton soared to just under 115 degrees Sunday, according to Environment Canada, a government weather agency.
As The Washington Post’s Capital Weather Gang noted, that’s just one degree lower than the city record in Las Vegas. The previous records for hottest temperature, both 113 degrees, were set in Yellow Grass and Midale in Saskatchewan on July 5, 1937.
“It’s warmer in parts of western Canada than in Dubai. I mean, it’s just not something that seems Canadian,” Environment Canada senior climatologist David Phillips told CTV News on Saturday.
[…] This year, Canada’s record comes amid a severe heat wave in the Pacific Northwest, where Portland and Seattle have set records: 112 degrees and 103 degrees, respectively.
[…] the heat wave is expected to continue for several more days. CTV News reported that predictions for Tuesday suggest Lytton could reach almost 117 degrees.
[…] Experts say climate change can make extreme weather events like this more common.
Air conditioning is not standard in British Columbia, and Canadian outlets reported that locals were having a hard time finding air conditioners and fans over the weekend.
BC Hydro, the main electric utility company in British Columbia, warned Monday that electricity demand was also setting records. […]
Dozens of corporate PACs have donated to anti-election Republicans, but “Toyota leads by a substantial margin.”
Within a few days of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, a handful of prominent companies said they would pause political contributions to congressional Republicans who voted to reject President Joe Biden’s victory. […]
Stuart Stevens, a longtime Republican strategist, told the New Yorker that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), in particular, was “scared to death” of corporate America’s response to the insurrectionist violence.
The question, of course, was how long the pause would last.
In April, JetBlue was among the first to open its corporate wallet, making a contribution through the airline’s corporate political action committee to Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) — who, like most House Republicans, opposed certification of the results of the 2020 presidential election, even after the deadly insurrectionist attack. Soon after, major defense contractors also resumed support for the GOP’s anti-election wing.
But relying on data from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), Axios reported this morning that one company stands out as being especially generous toward Republicans who took a stand against their own country’s democracy.
Nearly three-dozen corporate PACs have donated at least $5,000 to Republicans who objected to certifying the 2020 election, yet Toyota leads by a substantial margin…. Toyota gave more than twice as much — and to nearly five times as many members of Congress — as the No. 2 company on the list, Cubic Corp., a San Diego-based defense contractor.
In a written statement, a spokesperson for the automaker said, “We do not believe it is appropriate to judge members of Congress solely based on their votes on the electoral certification.”
It’s a flawed defense. The bare minimum of public service in the United States should include respect for election results, and it’s a test these Republicans failed.
Toyota’s spokesperson added, however, that the company is being judicious: “Based on our thorough review, we decided against giving to some members who, through their statements and actions, undermine the legitimacy of our elections and institutions.”
That sounds like a step in the appropriate direction, though Toyota did not offer any specifics about the company’s “review” or who failed to meet the threshold.
We know, for example, that Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), who reportedly helped organize the pre-riot “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6, and who opposed Congressional Gold Medals to honor Capitol Police officers who protected the building during the pro-Trump riot, was among those who benefited from Toyota’s money.
Evidently, under Toyota’s “review,” the far-right Arizonan didn’t quite demonstrate an indifference toward “the legitimacy of our elections.”
It’s worth emphasizing for context that the amount of money at issue here is relatively modest: Toyota has donated $55,000 to 37 GOP objectors so far this year. To the typical American family, $55,000 is certainly a lot of money, but in the world of campaign financing, especially at the federal level, it’s a small drop in an enormous bucket.
But the more Toyota feels comfortable supporting anti-election Republicans, the more others are likely to follow, removing another layer of accountability for those who chose to defy democracy without remorse.
[…] * After Republicans spent weeks demanding that Vice President Kamala Harris visit the U.S./Mexico border, RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel complained yesterday that the VP didn’t visit the right part of the border.
* On a related note, in what can only be seen as a campaign stunt, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) last week dispatched a contingent of 50 law enforcement officers to help bolster patrols along the U.S./Mexico border.
* As she prepares to seek national office in 2024, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley (R) told an Iowa audience that “Republicans are too nice,” adding, “The days of being nice should be over.” She did not appear to be kidding.
* At a campaign event in Ohio over the weekend, Donald Trump added Montana to the list of states whose election results he’s now questioning. Among the reasons this was odd: the Republican ticket carried Montana by more than 16 points.
Ever since Republicans realized that Democrats still intended to go ahead with their reconciliation infrastructure bill in lockstep with the bipartisan deal, they’ve been searching for a rationale to oppose the arrangement.
The real reason they don’t like it is clear, and was even stated publicly by Sen. John Thune (R-SD) earlier this month: GOP senators were hoping a bipartisan, scaled-down infrastructure bill would then lessen moderate Democrats’ incentive to cooperate on a progressive, much larger infrastructure bill, likely to pass on party lines through budget reconciliation later this year. Defections from centrist Democrats would kill that larger package, taking down key components of President Joe Biden’s agenda.
For the public-facing argument, though, Republican senators have settled on faux fury that they’ve been hoodwinked by Democrats’ insistence on moving the two bills — the bipartisan deal and the reconciliation package — in tandem.
“Republicans have been negotiating in bipartisan good faith to meet the real infrastructure needs of our nation,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said in a Monday statement. “The President cannot let congressional Democrats hold a bipartisan bill hostage over a separate and partisan process.”
In reality, Democrats’ intention to move these two pieces of legislation together has never been a secret. For Democratic leaders, it’s the only way to get both bills passed: it doesn’t give moderate Democrats the chance to back out of reconciliation after notching a bipartisan victory, and it assures progressives that a vote for the bipartisan deal doesn’t preclude passing its much more ambitious counterpart.
And Republicans knew it.
At a June 15 press conference, McConnell was explicitly asked if it gave him “pause” that Democrats intended to pursue their own agenda after reaching the bipartisan deal.
“Well, I think the majority leader has indicated there will be a reconciliation effort,” McConnell said. “I think what they’re wrestling with is what will it contain. So we are anticipating, at some point, getting a reconciliation bill.”
He’s not the only Republican on the record giving a clear-eyed statement about how these two bills would work.
Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) gave Democrats his blessing for a reconciliation bill in early April.
“My advice to the White House has been, take that bipartisan win, do this in a more traditional infrastructure way and then if you want to force the rest of the package on Republicans in the Congress and the country, you can certainly do that,” he said on Fox News.
[…] Even way back in mid-May, a whole different set of Republican negotiators — since replaced after those talks stalled out — acknowledged the legitimacy of Democrats using reconciliation to pass more of their own infrastructure priorities after Biden told them he planned to.
“I mean, why wouldn’t we work with the President of the United States to improve our infrastructure or make any other improvements in the country?” Sen. Shelley Moore-Capito (R-WV), previously the head GOP negotiator, said according to an ABC reporter. “I mean, we know that they have that option,” she said of reconciliation, adding: “We used that option in 2017.”
Republicans may have a political incentive to try to deprive Biden of scoring both a bipartisan victory and historic and progressive partisan achievement in one fell swoop. But pretending like their opposition to the game plan is grounded in Democrats’ duplicitous negotiating is simply, and provably, not true.
[…] New polling from Morning Consult/Politico on the insurrection inspired by Donald Trump and his supporters suggests the truth has simply proven too difficult for most Republican voters to absorb. So while nearly two-thirds of registered voters (64%) say Trump supporters were responsible for the attack, just 45% of Republicans agree (even as 80% of Democrats and 61% of independents say it was Trump supporters). Meanwhile, more than a quarter of GOP voters (27%) say opponents of Trump perpetrated the attack.
But the numbers on whom GOP voters blame more broadly for the events that triggered Jan. 6 attack are even more stark. While 61% of all voters blame Trump, just 30% of GOP voters do—an 11% drop since January. A similar drop took place among the number of GOP voters who hold Republicans in Congress very or somewhat responsible for the events that led to the attack. Back in January, 34% of GOP voters said congressional Republicans were at least partially to blame, but now just 22% say that, while 50% of registered voters overall hold congressional Republicans responsible for the events that led to the siege.
What is most astounding is the fact that Republican voters are now more likely to blame Joe Biden and congressional Democrats for the events that led up to the attack than Trump and Republicans in Congress. Today, 41% of GOP voters blame Biden while just 30% blame Trump, and 52% of Republican voters blame Democrats in Congress while just 22% blame GOP lawmakers. Stunning—GOP voters are more than twice as likely to blame Democratic lawmakers than Republican lawmakers for the events leading up to the Jan. 6 siege. […]
Trump tried to blow up a top state lawmaker for failing to vigorously pursue his false election claims. But the attack was a dud.
It could have upended the Wisconsin Republican Party’s annual convention, given Donald Trump’s hold on the GOP. Just as the state party gathered this past weekend, Trump issued a statement tearing into the state Assembly speaker, Robin Vos, and two other Republican lawmakers for doing too little to promote his election conspiracies.
But in a rare setback for his post-presidential interventions in the GOP, Trump in Wisconsin appeared to shoot a blank. When Vos and Devin LeMahieu, the state’s Senate majority leader, took the stage on Saturday in front of some of the party’s most fervent pro-Trump activists, it was as though Trump had said nothing at all. There were no boos. Vos drew applause. Convention-goers dismissed an effort to censure him.
I don’t think that “setback” was that rare for Trump. It seems to me like he encounters more and more such “setbacks” when he tries to bully other politicians.
In Wisconsin at least, Trump failed to set off the same intra-party chaos that has marked his efforts elsewhere. Worse for him, despite the former president’s harsh personal criticism, there were signs his comments were dismissed with a roll of the eyes. […]
the lack of interest from the rank-and-file suggested some of the first, tentative signs of weariness of Trump’s smash-mouth political act.
Even Sen. Ron Johnson, an unfailing Trump ally, broke with the former president’s criticism of Johnson’s home-state lawmakers, dismissing Trump’s suggestion that they could be primaried.
“I don’t think that represents much of a threat, quite honestly,” Johnson said, describing Vos and his colleagues as “doing a pretty good job.”
Trump remains wildly popular among Wisconsin Republicans […] Brian Jennings, chair of the GOP in Florence County, a sparsely populated Trump stronghold in northern Wisconsin, said “Trump is the Republican Party right now,” and on the sidelines of the convention, several delegates said Trump was right that Vos hadn’t done enough to overturn the results of the election.
But unlike in states like Georgia and Arizona, there wasn’t widespread interest in purging the state’s Assembly speaker for it […] “That’s Wisconsin for you,” said Helmut Fritz, a delegate from Milwaukee who sits on the state party’s credentials committee. “Trump isn’t the dictator.”
[…] in a sign that Trump’s supremacy isn’t absolute, Vos went further than many other Republican have been willing to, aligning himself with former House Speaker Paul Ryan, the Wisconsin Republican who in a speech last month clashed with Trump when he said, “If the conservative cause depends on the populist appeal of one personality, or of second-rate imitations, then we’re not going anywhere.”
“The things that President Trump stands for — a strong America, lower taxes, more freedom — everybody agrees with that,” Vos said in a brief interview off the convention floor. “But I will say … I agree with Paul Ryan saying that our movement should never be about one person.”
Trump, Vos said, “did a lot of good things. But so could [Florida Gov.] Ron DeSantis or [Florida Sen.] Marco Rubio or you name the candidate. They all could do good things, too.”
[…] After cresting in 2016, with Trump’s upset of Hillary Clinton, Republicans here lost the governorship in 2018, then saw the state flip to Joe Biden two years later. Johnson, the state’s top elected Republican, has not yet said if he’ll run for reelection (On Saturday, he told reporters he won’t announce a decision for “quite some time.”) […]
The House Ethics Committee on Monday upheld a $5,000 fine levied against Rep. Lloyd Smucker (R-Pa.) for failing to complete a security screening before entering the House chamber.
Smucker is the third House Republican whose appeal against paying the fine has been rejected by the House Ethics Committee.
[…] Another case, involving a fine issued to Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), is still pending.
According to the Capitol Police report filed with the fine notification issued to Smucker, the Pennsylvania Republican entered the House chamber on May 19 without being screened despite police officers’ attempts to get his attention.
[…] The fines are deducted from lawmakers’ official salaries. House members are expressly prohibited from paying them with funds from their campaign or congressional office budgets.
House Democrats voted to establish the fines earlier this year because numerous Republicans evaded the metal detectors in defiance of the Capitol Police officers instituting the new screenings after Jan. 6.
Democrats’ fears about Republicans possibly carrying weapons were confirmed after Capitol Police officers found a concealed gun on Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.) in January while he underwent a metal detector screening outside the House chamber. […]
The White House on Monday defended the Biden administration’s weekend military airstrikes against Iran-backed militia groups […]
“The defense of the United States and our interests is our domestic justification for these strikes,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters during the daily press briefing.
President Biden “takes legal authority and justification for military action quite seriously. And certainly we consult our legal teams to ensure we have that justification. And we certainly feel confident we do,” she added.
The U.S. military on Sunday conducted airstrikes on facilities along the Iraq-Syria border used by Iran-backed militia groups Kata’ib Hezbollah (KH) and Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada (KSS).
Psaki said the strikes were directed at facilities used by the militias for weapon storage, command logistics and operating unmanned aerial vehicles used in attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq.
[…] “The United States must always take decisive action to protect our personnel and interests against attacks. I will be seeking more information from the Administration in the coming days regarding what specifically predicated these strikes, any imminent threats they believed they were acting against, and more details on the legal authority the Administration relied upon,” Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) said in a statement earlier on Monday. […]
“The attacks against our troops need to stop, and that is why the president ordered the operation last night in self-defense of our personnel,” she said.
She added that the White House “completed a number of [congressional] member and staff notifications prior to taking action” and is “continuing to brief members of Congress, and we’re also in close touch with partners in the region.”
Wonkette: “Christian Preacher Very Concerned About Demon-Possessed Joe Biden And His Sex-Trafficking Tunnels”
Pastor Greg Locke has not been having an easy time of things lately. After the 2020 election, he used his no-doubt considerable prophetic abilities to predict that Donald Trump would “100 percent remain president of the United States for another term.” But he was wrong and Trump is instead zero percent the president of the United States. Then, he found himself getting some bad publicity after a congregant who believed his assertions that COVID was fake and the vaccines were evil ended up dying of COVID, which he was not very happy about.
So the guy is kind of on edge, we imagine. Perhaps that is why he spent part of his sermon this Sunday delivering an incredibly well-reasoned argument about how there are tunnels under the Capitol and the White House that are used for child sex trafficking, and that Joe Biden is an evil, demon-possessed pedophile, who “ain’t no better than the Pope and Oprah Winfrey and Tom Hanks.” Yes, that is what he said. [video is available at the link]
He said:
LOCKE: God’s about to bring the whole house down, ladies and gentlemen. These bunch of sex-trafficking mongrels are about to be exposed! These bunch of pedophiles in Hollywood are gonna be exposed for who they are! I don’t care what you think about Fraudulent Sleepy Joe, he’s a sex-trafficking, demon-possessed mongrel! He’s of the left! He ain’t no better than the Pope and Oprah Winfrey and Tom Hanks and the rest of that wicked crowd. God is gonna bring the whole house down, I said he’s gonna bring the whole house down, he’s gonna burn the whole thing to ground, he’s gonna expose these bunch of pedophiles.
I’m telling you, he’s gonna expose Kamala Harris for the Jezebel demon that she is. […]
I don’t know why pastors don’t talk about this stuff. Well I do, they don’t want to seem “crazy.” I’M ALREADY CRAZY!
People are like, “Do you really think it’s that much of an epidemic? Do you honestly believe, Pastor Locke, that the military uncovered tunnels beneath the Capitol building and beneath the White House, and in the five fingered lakes? Do you really believe that they found kids?”
Yeah! Both live ones and dead ones, and if you disagree with that, and if you try to discount that, and if you try to cover that, and if you try to keep that on the DL, you’re just as complicit as Hunter Biden and the rest of them bunch of crack-smoking perverts.
Always with the tunnels, these people! […] Thematically it makes sense, I guess, but logistically it does not.
First of all, it would not really be possible to dig tunnels like that without anyone ever noticing that you were doing that […] Second, is the theory here that there are just bands of children being walked from pedophile to pedophile underneath these tunnels and all the pedophiles have like, stops connecting their homes to these tunnels? Because that is very inefficient. It would take a super long time, given their tiny legs. […]
Is Locke suggesting that the children just live in the tunnels under the White House with their dead friends and don’t go anywhere? If so, why didn’t his big hero Donald Trump do anything about this? How did the children underneath the White House survive without anyone feeding them?
How is this for some Alanis-style irony, though? This whole sermon is available on YouTube, but Right Wing Watch — which simply shares clips of this nonsense, adding disclaimers every time that the content does not reflect their views but rather that they are presenting this stuff to educate people about the right wing — is not anymore. Right Wing Watch has been officially banned from YouTube, while many of the hate preachers and right-wing assholes they call attention to get to remain.
YouTube also deleted everything from the Right Wing Watch channel, meaning thousands of clips highlighting right-wing batshittery are now also erased. We all know why this is, and it is because purveyors of right-wing batshittery hate Right Wing Watch, just like they hate Media Matters, because they don’t like it when the left lies about them by quoting them word-for-word and showing clips of what they say. Therefore, devotees constantly flag videos meant to criticize and expose extremism and conspiracy theories.
However, we would have to assume that YouTube knows what Right Wing Watch is, as it’s a relatively well-known website, so it is entirely possible YouTube is just doing this to avoid Republicans whining to them about supposed “bias.”
Following YouTube’s reversal late today of its decision this morning to permanently suspend the account of Right Wings Watch, People For the American Way’s project dedicated to monitoring dangerous rhetoric on the Far Right, Right Wing Watch Director Adele Stan released the following statement:
“We are glad that by reinstating our account, YouTube recognizes our position that there is a world of difference between reporting on offensive activities and committing them. Without the ability to accurately portray dangerous behavior, meaningful journalism and public education about that behavior would cease to exist. We hope this is the end of a years-long struggle with YouTube to understand the nature of our work. We also hope the platform will become more transparent about the process it uses to determine whether a user has violated its rules, which has always been opaque and has led to frustrating and inexplicable decisions and reversals such as the one we experienced today. We remain dedicated to exposing threatening and harmful activities on the Far Right and we are glad to have YouTube again available to us to continue our work.”
[…]
“Right Wing Watch’s YouTube channel was mistakenly suspended, but upon further review, has now been reinstated,” the tech company said in a statement.
It attributed the mistake to the large volume of videos on its site. YouTube automates much of the content moderation for the more than 500 hours of content that it says are uploaded every minute […]
Some conservative activists had delighted in the removal, noting in posts on Twitter that Right Wing Watch had often called on YouTube to ban them or their allies for rules violations. But others said the ban showed a troubling inability by YouTube to distinguish between creators of prohibited content and those countering it.
[…]
[A senior fellow at Right Wing Watch, Kyle] Mantylla told [Business] Insider that another one of its videos was flagged for violating community guidelines as soon as YouTube restored its account Monday afternoon.
As an aside, it seems doubtful any of the uploaded video archive was deleted (or they have since been restored).
Alexander wanted to distinguish Stop the Steal by being more directly confrontational than Kremer’s group [Women for America First] and the tea party. “Our movement is masculine in nature,” he said in a livestream.
LOL.
Quoted in Lynna’s #184:
McConnell told Barr in mid-November that Trump’s hoaxes were “damaging” to both the country and to the Republican Party—no guesses on which of those was the more pressing concern, for Mitch—but Republicans “cannot be frontally attacking [Trump] right now,” because Mitch and the others were trying to keep on Trump’s good side for fear an open declaration of Biden’s victory would result in an angry Trump sabotaging Republican election chances in the two Georgia Senate runoff races. Barr was “in a better position to inject some reality” into Trump’s claims of election fraud.
People in the media keep suggesting that this is Barr trying to make himself look better, but to me this all makes him seem even more corrupt.
SC @213, “People in the media keep suggesting that this is Barr trying to make himself look better, but to me this all makes him seem even more corrupt.”
I think that is Barr trying to make himself look better by making McConnell look even worse. The problem is that Barr doesn’t realize that it make him look even more corrupt.
Holding his first campaign-style rally in months, an out-of-practice Donald J. Trump forgot to strand the event’s attendees in a parking lot Saturday night.
Blaming the failure to strand the rally crowd on “rustiness,” a member of Trump’s inner circle apologized for not delivering a signature feature of Trump rallies.
“People have come to expect that, at the conclusion of one of our rallies, they will be marooned in the middle of nowhere for hours, often in inclement weather,” Harland Dorrinson, a Trump aide, said. “On Saturday night, we didn’t get it done.”
Dorrinson said that the entire Trump team would be conducting a postmortem of the rally to find out why attendees were able to leave the event without incident.
“Saturday night was our first rally in a long time, and we weren’t in fighting shape,” Dorrinson said. “But that’s no excuse. I want to promise all future attendees: if you come to a Trump rally, you will be stranded for hours afterward with no buses anywhere in sight—period.”
The U.S. military carried out what a Pentagon official called ‘defensive’ airstrikes in Iraq and Syria on Sunday against Iran-backed militia groups that were behind drone attacks on American personnel.
A bystander who intervened in the shooting of a police officer in Colorado on Monday by shooting the gunman was himself fatally shot by a responding police officer, the authorities said on Friday.
The police department in Arvada, Colo., just outside Denver, shared a timeline on Friday that outlined what the police chief, Link Strate, described as a tragic sequence of events that resulted in the deaths of a good Samaritan and a police officer.
The police said they responded to a call of a suspicious person at Arvada’s Olde Town, a downtown district with shops, restaurants and bars, at 1:31 p.m. local time on Monday.
A teenager had reported that an older man had walked up to him, “made a weird noise, and showed them a condom,” Chief Strate said in a video.
Officer Gordon Beesley encountered the man, identified by the authorities as Ronald Troyke, 59, who had a shotgun. The police said Mr. Troyke ran after Officer Beesley and shot him twice, adding that Officer Beesley did not reach for his gun or have time to defend himself.
Officer Beesley was “brutally ambushed and murdered by someone who expressed hatred for police officers,” Chief Strate said, adding, “What happened next is equally tragic.”
Mr. Troyke returned to his truck to retrieve an AR-15, the police said. He then returned to the square, where he was confronted by the bystander, Johnny Hurley, 40, who shot him with a handgun, according to the police.
“Almost immediately after” Mr. Hurley shot Mr. Troyke, a responding officer encountered Mr. Hurley, who was now holding the AR-15, and shot him, Chief Strate said.
[…] Chief Strate said Mr. Hurley’s actions saved lives and what he did “can only be described as decisive, courageous and effective.”
“Mr. Hurley intervened in an active shooting that unfolded quickly,” Chief Strate said. “He did so without hesitation.”
[…] The police said Mr. Troyke’s brother called the authorities before 1 p.m. on Monday to ask them to check on his brother because he was going to “do something crazy.”
Two officers arrived at Mr. Troyke’s home within 20 minutes but were unable to make contact with him, according to the timeline.
After the shooting, the police said investigators found a document written by Mr. Troyke in which he stated that his goal was to “kill as many Arvada officers” as possible and that “hundreds of you pigs should be killed daily.”
[…] A GoFundMe page for Mr. Hurley’s family set up by Brian Romero said Mr. Hurley lived and worked in Colorado his whole life.
“Johnny lived simply and had meager possessions,” Mr. Romero wrote. “He loved the outdoors, had a passion for food and cooking, and loved spending time with family even briefly when possible.”
The post said Mr. Hurley was survived by his parents and a sister.
Two high-ranking Trump political appointees at the Environmental Protection Agency arranged for a pair of agency employees to reap tens of thousands of dollars in salaries even after they were fired, according to a report from EPA’s Office of Inspector General.
The improper payments were directed by former chief of staff Ryan Jackson and carried out by former White House liaison Charles Munoz, and totaled almost $38,000, according to the March report obtained by POLITICO via a Freedom of Information Act request.
In addition, Munoz also received an improper raise and submitted “fraudulent timesheets” that cost EPA almost $96,000, the OIG calculated.
Federal prosecutors declined to press charges over any of the OIG’s findings, and both men have since left the agency — Jackson in February 2020 to be vice president for government and political affairs at the National Mining Association, and Munoz on Jan. 20, when the Biden administration took office.
[…] The new OIG report, which is heavily redacted to hide the identities of the two EPA employees who continued to be paid after departing the agency, explicitly faults Jackson and Munoz for improper actions that cost the agency significant sums.
[…] “Mr. Munoz explained that the ‘fix,’ which he believed was Mr. Jackson’s idea, was to tell the EPA’s Human Resources Management Division that [the person] was on an extended telework schedule so that [they] would receive pay” after their termination, the report said. “Mr. Munoz explained that he believed Mr. Jackson would not be happy if he had not followed Mr. Jackson’s order to get additional pay for [the person] after [their] termination.”
[…] In May 2018, Jackson created a new position for Munoz of senior adviser to the regional administrator for EPA’s Pacific southwest region, headquartered in San Francisco. However, Munoz’s assigned duty station was Las Vegas, his hometown and where he was the Trump campaign’s Nevada state director. EPA maintains a finance center in the city.
[…] Reviews of phone and email logs and other records often showed he often was not present at EPA’s Las Vegas office. Among other things, the OIG found Munoz had kept DMV appointments and met a furniture delivery at his home during purported work times.
[…] According to [redacted sources], when Mr. Munoz came into the office he departed around midday or during lunch and did not return.” Munoz told investigators he would “consider himself working because he was accessible by phone when not in the office.”
The total loss to EPA for Munoz’s alleged misconduct was $55,150.44, according to the report, which only studied his activities for the May-December 2018 period.
[…] With both men gone from the agency and federal prosecutors declining to press charges, the OIG report was “provided to EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan for any action deemed appropriate.”
“EPA will review the report,” agency spokesperson Tim Carroll said in a statement.
Here’s a link to the June 29 Guardian coronavirus world liveblog.
From their morning summary:
The coronavirus pandemic is continuing to fade but the Delta variant now accounts for about 20% of all new confirmed cases in France, the country’s health minister, Olivier Véran, has said.
“If you’re vaccinated, you can still be infected but the symptoms will not be severe,” he said. The French government’s aim was “zero health, social or educational impact” from a fourth wave as vaccination implied a 94-95% reduction in hospitalisations and severe cases, he said – although those who choose not to be vaccinated will be “particularly exposed”.
A rise in daily cases of the coronavirus in Tokyo has triggered fears of a possible fifth wave of infections, less than a month before the city is due to host the Olympics. Tokyo reported 317 infections on Monday – an increase of 81 from the same day last week and the ninth week-on-week rise in a row.
Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party is set to propose to the government that it allow AstraZeneca’s vaccines to be used in corporate inoculation programmes. Japan has approved the use of AstraZeneca vaccines, but has avoided using them in its state mass inoculation drive amid lingering concern over reports of rare blood clots.
Foreign ministers from the Group of 20 major economies have met face-to-face on Tuesday for the first time in two years, with host Italy aiming to push multilateral cures for global crises like the Covid-19 pandemic.
…
Indonesia’s Covid surge is on the edge of a “catastrophe” as the more infectious Delta variant dominates transmission and chokes hospitals in south-east Asia’s worst epidemic, the Red Cross said.
Bangladesh prepared to enter into its harshest lockdown yet, with people only allowed to leave their homes in an emergency and soldiers set to patrol the streets, as a deadly resurgence of Covid-19 infections swept the country.
As the national Covid positivity rate exceeded 20% and Bangladesh recorded its highest single-day death toll of the pandemic so far, the government announced a set of tough measures to attempt to curb the spread, including the closure of public transport networks and confining the population to their homes for a week.
Frustration is mounting in Australia over low vaccination rates and changing advice on the AstraZeneca jab after outbreaks of the highly contagious Delta variant sent more parts of the country into lockdown.
Greece plans to boost its vaccination rates by offering young people €150 to take the vaccine. Prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis called it “a gift out of gratitude” to young people.
Ireland’s government is to decide today whether to permit only those who are fully vaccinated to eat and drink inside bars and restaurants.
Ministers in England are expected to announce plans that will mean school pupils will no longer have to automatically isolate after contact with a positive Covid case. The proposals are that self-isolating will be replaced by a testing regime to prevent children from missing school.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and new health secretary Sajid Javid added their voice to condemnation of an incident in which chief medical officer Chris Whitty was apparently jostled and harassed in a park in central London….
Hong Kong has banned passenger flights from the UK and will stop anyone who has spent two hours in the UK from boarding a plane. The city has deemed the UK “extremely high risk” because of rising cases and the spread of the Delta variant.
India has administered more vaccine doses in the last two weeks than the number of people who signed up for shots during the period, government data showed , signalling improving supplies after widespread shortages.
Brazil could have saved 400,000 lives if the country had implemented stricter social distancing measures and launched a vaccination programme earlier, according to an eminent epidemiologist who is leading the first study to quantify the scale of the country’s Covid disaster.
Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte has prolonged restrictions on movement and businesses in the Philippine capital and nearby provinces until mid-July, and retained stricter Covid curbs in central and southern areas.
He was known as the Peruvian Rasputin, the spymaster of one of the country’s most corrupt and brutal regimes.
Vladimiro Montesinos masterminded a network of political espionage, mining state coffers to control the military top brass, the courts, and the media – until he was brought down by one of his own videotapes which showed him bribing politicians.
Now Montesinos, the éminence grise of the jailed former president Alberto Fujimori, has re-emerged after nearly two decades of relative obscurity – this time amid an apparent bid to aid Fujimori’s daughter Keiko Fujimori, whose baseless claims of electoral fraud have plunged Peru into its most tumultuous weeks in recent history.
With all the ballots from the 6 June election counted, the leftwing candidate Pedro Castillo holds a razor-thin lead of about 44,000 votes out a total of more than 19m.
But Fujimori – aided by a largely partisan media and a slew of fake news – has demanded tens of thousands of votes be recounted or scrapped, particularly in rural areas, where Castillo had overwhelming support.
Montesinos is serving multiple sentences for human rights crimes, corruption, and arms and drugs trafficking in a maximum security naval base prison, yet he was somehow able to use a landline number to make 17 phone calls to Pedro Rejas, a retired military officer and formerly loyal Fujimori cohort who later revealed the recordings.
Peru’s defence ministry confirmed the security breach at the navy-run prison and said three guards and one officer had been relieved of their positions.
In one conversation, days after the election, Montesinos appears to suggest bribes be paid through an intermediary to three of the four members of an electoral tribunal to favour Fujimori in a recount.
“If we had done the job as we had proposed it we would not be in this shitty problem,” Montesinos, 76, complains at one point in the recording.
The recordings mark the latest twist in a tortuous post-election showdown – but also an unwelcome reminder of some of the country’s darkest recent history.
…
Fujimori has called the Montesinos recording an attempt to distract the public from the election process.But there are signs Fujimori’s backers have begun to distance themselves from her. “Enough is enough,” said a weekend newspaper column in El Comercio, part of Peru’s biggest media group, which had previously backed the three-time presidential candidate.
“Today it is clear that what began with the use of legitimate legal resources to question the suitability of some ballots … has started to become an attempt to delay the process as much as possible,” the column read.
…
The emergence of the Montesinos audios ended an unsettling week, as one of the four judges on the electoral tribunal quit, leaving it without quorum, after clashing with the other officials over requests to nullify votes. He was replaced on Saturday by another judge, but both face separate probes for alleged corruption.
The electoral tribunal has until 28 July, Peru’s independence day, to declare a winner, if not new elections must be called under the country’s constitution.
Meanwhile, prosecutors are seeking to charge former generals and admirals – among them a former military dictator Francisco Morales Bérmudez prosecuted for the murder of Italian civilians in Operation Condor – with sedition and conspiracy for three open letters which called on the armed forces to reject Castillo’s presidential claim.
“What we are seeing is a slow-motion conspiracy to prevent Castillo from becoming president,” said Burt.
…The anti-LGBTQ policies of the past few years are not incidental to Fidesz’s ideology. A paper by Andrea Pető and Weronika Grzebalska, two scholars of gender and politics in Central Europe, identify the Hungarian government’s commitment to traditional gender norms as the “symbolic glue” that holds its overall ideology together, positioning social liberalism “as a symbol of everything that is wrong with the current state of politics.”
In the government’s narrative, the traditional Christian Hungarian family is under attack by nefarious globalist liberals who want to replace Hungarian mothers and fathers with immigrants. Defending the Hungarian nation means defending the family, defined exclusively as male-female pairings that produce more Hungarian children. The Orbán government is notoriously obsessed with the birthrate, passing tax and welfare policies specifically framed as incentives for native Hungarian women to have more kids.
…
Closer to home, we’re seeing something similar afoot. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) recently signed a bill that would require professors at state-funded universities to fill out surveys describing the campus ideological climate, threatening budget funds if schools are deemed insufficiently open to right-wing ideas. Dozens of state legislatures have passed or proposed bills that regulate what can be taught in the classroom on similar grounds — a response to the allegedly corrosive threat of “critical race theory” on the US educational system.
These American bills are not directly inspired by Hungarian policies. But the affinities between right-wing populists in these countries are real, with many leading thinkers on the American right openly admiring Orbán’s willingness to wage culture wars, to the point where they’re willing to downplay his authoritarian abuses.
“What I see in Orbán is one of the few major politicians in the West who seems to understand the importance of Christianity, and the importance of culture, and who is willing to defend these things against a very rich and powerful international establishment,” Rod Dreher, a senior writer at the American Conservative who recently accepted a writing fellowship at the government-funded Danube Institute in Budapest, told me last year. “I find myself saying of Orbán what I hear conservatives say when they explain why they instinctively love Trump: because he fights. The thing about Orbán is that unlike Trump, he fights, and he wins, and his victories are substantive.”
This cultural affinity is effectively an intellectual shield for Orbán, with criticism of his anti-democratic tendencies portrayed by conservatives as a liberal smear.
“One suspects [allegations of authoritarianism are] just simple hatred of Christian conservatism, a fanatical projection of culture war antipathies to the near abroad,” Michael Brendan Dougherty writes in National Review, without a hint of irony.
The Hungarian government has assiduously courted the global intellectual right, setting up meetings between Orbán and prominent socially conservative thinkers from countries ranging from Canada to Israel. The goal is to construct an international traditionalist alliance, centering on Budapest, that aligns right-wing populist movements in Europe and beyond. The culture war is a useful tool for normalizing Hungarian authoritarianism globally, and for enlisting allies who are willing to overlook anti-democratic abuses when the right side of the culture war is perpetrating them.…
Much more atl. (The article strangely sidelines Putin’s demonization and persecution of LGBT people.)
We speak to the sister of ‘Burn Notice’, the QAnon influencer and long-time friend of Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison — who is accused of inserting his buddy’s QAnon beliefs (“Ritual Sexual Abuse”) into an official apology speech for Australia’s long history of institutional sexual abuse and coverups.
Now that COVID is waning, Tucker Carlson and the rightwing hysteria machine have to find a new culture war. Heads up, Concerned Parents, there’s a new moral-panic bogeyman—fomented by the far right and Fox News—that’s coming for America’s children, and it’s called critical race theory. n this week’s episode of Fever Dreams, Daily Beast reporters Asawin Suebsaeng and Will Sommer talk to senior NBC News reporter and Daily Beast alumnus Brandy Zadrozny about how the battle over CRT has become the “new obsession of the rabid right,” one that Tucker Carlson and well-connected conservative activists are trying to foment in towns nationwide. And don’t miss our discussions of the rise of the Barstool Republican and whether it’s fair to kink-shame the Proud Boys, as well as a behind-the-scenes look at how Trump tried to shut down Saturday Night Live.
‘Republicans hate the police.
Republicans hate the military.’
Not sure why centrist Dems, who are so obsessed with the left of their own party and ‘defund the police,’ aren’t pushing these lines out in attack ads, featuring images of 1/6 and Mark Milley.
This is Nick Fuentes. He is a white supremacist anti-Semite. That’s not Twitter hyperbole, just a straight-up description. Here he is smilingly denying the Holocaust:…
This is Republican congressman @DrPaulGosar. He spoke after Fuentes at a political event in February. Fuentes claims that he is doing an actual fundraiser with Gosar on July 1. Fuentes is a liar, so this needs to be confirmed, but if true, Gosar should be expelled from Congress….
Video and more atl. Trump and the Republican Party have given people like this a platform.
When Britain awoke on Friday morning to tabloid pictures of the health secretary, Matt Hancock, in a ‘steamy clinch’ with a colleague, it was clear that his career hung by a thread. He had been a harsh critic of other prominent figures breaking lockdown rules, and here was what appeared to be a clear breach of his own social distancing guidelines. Later that day he was given the backing of the prime minister, who considered the matter closed. It was anything but.
The following morning saw the release of a full CCTV version of the incident in his office, and on the airwaves there was a distinct lack of colleagues willing to support him. Later that day his resignation letter was accepted by Boris Johnson. Hancock was gone.
But as the Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland tells Anushka Asthana, many questions remain unanswered. Did the affair pre-date the employment of Gina Coladangelo at the Department of Health? How could such intimate images be leaked from the inner office of a secretary of state? Did he break rules on the use of private email? And how much has the incident damaged Johnson’s government?
Tonight Axios pivots from Biden upended the awesome bipartisan deal to explaining how Mitch McConnell’s plan was always to sabotage the deal and run down the clock. So of course that’s why he did the faux shock over the “veto threat” …
It’s classic DC press corp two step: report and amplify the bullshit while pretending it’s real and then shift to explaining the ingenious strategy behind bamboozling everyone with bullshit.
With effectively no concern for the facts or the public good.
“Highlights of Jan 6 select committee: Pelosi gets to pick all 13 members (will consult with McCarthy for 5 of them). Committee chair has unilateral subpoena power, a change from the independent commission which required GOP appointees’ buy-in. House to vote on committee this week”
Ron Johnson pushes a lot of nonsense, but when it comes to threatening public health, his COVID rhetoric has been especially pernicious.
When Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) announced plans for an event that would “question COVID-19 vaccine safety,” many, including Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D), urged him to reconsider.
Not surprisingly, the Republican senator ignored his reality-based critics. The result was predictable.
During a news conference Monday calling into question the safety of the Covid-19 vaccines, Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin again incorrectly used figures from an early warning system by the federal government to support his argument that vaccines may not be completely safe. Johnson argued that while most people don’t suffer significant side effects following vaccination, he is concerned about “that small minority that are suffering severe symptoms.” He pointed again and again to the number of reported deaths in the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System [VAERS] in setting up his argument warning against the vaccines.
CNN’s report on this added that the Wisconsin Republican, even while citing these figures, conceded that said the system “does not prove causation or necessarily even correlation.”
If this sounds familiar, there’s a good reason for that. This first came up in early May, when Johnson, under the guise of “just asking the questions,” pointed to the VAERS system, saying, “We are over 3,000 deaths within 30 days of getting the vaccine. About 40% of those occur on day zero, one or two.”
A HuffPost report explained soon after, “As the VAERS website clearly states, the reports it contains have not been verified, and anyone with an internet connection can submit one. It’s not new; the CDC has been running it for three decades. But during the coronavirus pandemic, it has become a weapon for conspiracy theorists and anti-vaccination activists who use the numbers found there to spread misinformation about vaccines.”
A spokesperson for Johnson told CNN last month that the senator was “not suggesting the deaths were directly caused by the COVID-19 vaccine.” […] but even the GOP senator must’ve realized how his comments would be received by the public. In the context of a discussion about vaccinations, Johnson brought up misinformation popular in anti-vaccine circles, and told a public audience about a possible connection between vaccinations and adverse health effects.
[…] it was just two months ago when the senator also appeared on a Wisconsin radio show to insist the COVID vaccine is “not a fully approved vaccine”; he’s “getting highly suspicious” of the “big push to make sure everybody gets the vaccine”; there’s “no reason” to encourage Americans to get vaccinated; and he has “doubts” in response to White House requests that the public should “trust the government.”
[…] In July 2020, Johnson argued that the United States “overreacted” in response to the coronavirus pandemic, which was unfortunate at the time, and which is a perspective that looks much worse now.
In late 2020, Johnson sunk lower, holding multiple Senate hearings to promote pseudo-science and conspiracy theories. Dr. Ashish Jha, dean at Brown University School of Public Health, appeared as a witness at one of the Senate hearings and was amazed by the Wisconsin senator’s apparent suspicion that there’s a “coordinated effort by America’s doctors” to deny patients hydroxychloroquine because of a corrupt scheme involving physicians and the pharmaceutical industry.
More recently, YouTube found it necessary to suspend Johnson’s account after he peddled unproven COVID treatments.
[…] the GOP senator has been cavalier about his indifference to an FBI warning that he was “a target of Russian disinformation” during the last election cycle. He’s also denied ever having “talked about the election being stolen,” despite ample evidence pointing in the opposite direction. Johnson’s nonsense about the Jan. 6 attack has been especially ridiculous.
But when it comes to threatening public health, the Republican’s rhetoric about the pandemic has been especially pernicious.
[…] The Taliban, who have quickly taken control of dozens of districts since U.S. forces began to leave in April, have created conditions that “won’t look good for Afghanistan in the future if there is a push for a military takeover,” Miller [Gen. Scott Miller] said.
“The loss of terrain and the rapidity of that loss of terrain has to be concerning,” Miller added. “As you watch the Taliban moving across the country, what you don’t want to have happen is that the people lose hope, and they believe they now have a foregone conclusion presented to them.”
The United States is more than halfway complete in withdrawing the last of the roughly 3,500 American troops from Afghanistan since President Biden ordered an end to the 20-year conflict in April.
U.S. officials reportedly believe withdrawal could be completed as soon as early July, well ahead of Biden’s Sept. 11 deadline.
But reports have also emerged that U.S. intelligence agencies assess the Afghan government could fall as soon as six months after the U.S. forces leave.
About 650 U.S. troops are expected to stay in the country to provide security at the U.S. embassy, and Biden administration officials have said the U.S. military will continue to give Afghan forces financial support and assistance for its air force maintenance crews.
But Pentagon officials have indicated the United States will no longer provide defensive airstrikes, with Miller telling ABC News it will “be discussed as we move forward.”
[…] Miller also said as more troops and equipment leave Afghanistan “there’s less and less I can directly offer [Afghan forces] in terms of assistance. So that’s hard.” […]
The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the PennEast pipeline can seize land from the state of New Jersey for its construction […]
The 5-4 decision wasn’t split along ideological lines in the case that pitted fossil fuel interests against states’ rights.
The majority opinion, penned by Chief Justice John Roberts and joined by Justices Stephen Breyer, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor and Brett Kavanaugh, argued that the federal government can deputize private entities like the PennEast Pipeline Company to seize land under the federal government’s eminent domain rights.
The five justices rejected New Jersey’s argument that the pipeline company taking its land violated its sovereign immunity protecting it from lawsuits, including property condemnation suits, and argued that the state gave up its ability to evade eminent domain by ratifying the Constitution.
“Although nonconsenting States are generally immune from suit, they surrendered their immunity from the exercise of the federal eminent domain power when they ratified the Constitution,” Roberts wrote.
“That power carries with it the ability to condemn property in court. Because the Natural Gas Act delegates the federal eminent domain power to private parties, those parties can initiate condemnation proceedings, including against state-owned property,” he added.
The four dissenting justices, in an opinion written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, argued that permitting the company to take the state’s land through eminent domain violates court precedent which has determined that the Constitution doesn’t allow for Congress to interfere with states’ sovereign immunity. […]
The Biden administration had backed the PennEast pipeline in court, arguing that states aren’t exempt from a law allowing permit holders to take property for infrastructure projects.
Some Republicans no longer see blanket climate denial as a sustainable position. But until they endorse meaningful solutions, it’s not enough.
When temperatures in Oregon reach 117 degrees, it’s bound to affect the public conversation about global warming. As a political matter, however, it’s an open question as to what congressional Republicans have to contribute to this conversation.
The New York Times reported the other day that are hints of a slight shift in GOP politics, at least among some Republican lawmakers.
When Representative John Curtis quietly approached fellow Republicans to invite them to discuss climate change at a clandestine meeting in his home state of Utah, he hoped a half dozen members might attend. Soon the guest list blew past expectations as lawmakers heard about the gathering and asked to be included. For two days in February, 24 Republicans gathered in a ballroom of the Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City where they brainstormed ways to get their party to engage on a planetary problem it has ignored for decades.
“Some came with the promise of being anonymous. It’s terrible that Republicans can’t even go talk about it without being embarrassed,” Curtis told the newspaper.
[…] some GOP officials are prepared to take the issue seriously, not because of the environmental threat, but because failing to take the issue seriously might hurt the party’s electoral prospects.
[…]. In the short term, the plan apparently includes the formation of a new group on Capitol Hill: Utah’s John Curtis last week formed the Conservative Climate Caucus, which will apparently reject “radical progressive climate proposals,” but cultivate conservative-friendly solutions.
According to a preliminary tally, the Conservative Climate Caucus has 52 members in the House, which means roughly a fourth of the House Republican conference is willing to be associated with the contingent.
But what about actual governance? The Times went on to report:
A package of bills [House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy] introduced on Earth Day championed carbon capture…. It also promoted tree planting and expansion of nuclear energy, a carbon-free power source that many Republicans prefer over wind or solar energy. Those policies would do little to reduce the fossil fuel emissions that are driving up average global temperatures and causing more extreme heat, drought and wildfires; more intense storms; and rapid extinction of plant and wildlife species. Republicans have not offered any specific targets for cutting emissions.
In case this isn’t obvious, let’s make the concern plain: if a significant number GOP policymakers are finally serious about addressing the intensifying climate crisis, great. If Republicans want to be able to tell certain voting constituencies that they’re not climate deniers — using the Conservative Climate Caucus and ineffective ideas as fig leaves — that’s not great at all.
I’m glad that some members of the radicalized House Republican conference no longer see blanket climate denial as a sustainable political position. It’s a welcome step toward reality that should’ve happened years ago, and it might help change the political conversation. […]
This first came up in early May, when Johnson, under the guise of “just asking the questions,” pointed to the VAERS system, saying, “We are over 3,000 deaths within 30 days of getting the vaccine. About 40% of those occur on day zero, one or two.”
A HuffPost report explained soon after, “As the VAERS website clearly states, the reports it contains have not been verified, and anyone with an internet connection can submit one.
Now I’m picturing reports like “I got my first shot last month, and when I woke up the next day I was dead!” In all seriousness, I looked at VAERS a while back and IIRC before you can even do a search you have to agree that you understand a disclaimer about the unverified nature of the reports and that you’ll use the system accordingly.
Quoted in Lynna’s #233:
In the short term, the plan apparently includes the formation of a new group on Capitol Hill: Utah’s John Curtis last week formed the Conservative Climate Caucus, which will apparently reject “radical progressive climate proposals,” but cultivate conservative-friendly solutions.
This arbitrary limitation renders their project intellectually dishonest. Whether or not a proposed response will be adequate or effective depends on the nature of the problem, and some problems – like AGW – are radical in nature and require radical action. Global warming doesn’t give a shit about their ideology or their donors’ profits.
Pacific Northwest’s Stifling Heat Breaks All-Time Records for Second Straight Day
The Pacific Northwest is sweltering under an unprecedented June heat wave fueled by the climate crisis, with all-time-high temperatures shattered in Oregon, Washington and British Columbia for the second day in a row. Seattle reached 108 degrees Fahrenheit on Monday; Portland hit 116; while the village of Lytton, British Columbia, hit 46.1 degrees Celsius — or 115 Fahrenheit. That’s the highest surface temperature ever recorded in Canada.
More than 12,000 residents of western Washington lost power amid surging demand for electricity and after a wildfire spread below high-voltage power lines in King County….
Moscow Storms Break Russia’s Record-Setting June Heat Wave
In Russia, torrential rains and heavy winds tore through Moscow on Monday, flooding streets and subway lines and uprooting trees. The violent storm broke a record-setting heat wave that saw Moscow and St. Petersburg reach their highest June temperatures on record. Last week, a Siberian town above the Arctic Circle known for its extreme cold temperatures recorded a peak ground temperature of 118 degrees Fahrenheit.
Dozens of Youth Climate Activists Arrested at White House Demanding Action on Climate Crisis
In Washington, D.C., hundreds of youth climate activists surrounded the White House Monday in a nonviolent blockade demanding President Biden take meaningful action on the climate crisis. Secret Service agents made dozens of arrests. Members of the Sunrise Movement are calling on Biden and congressional Democrats to pass an infrastructure bill that includes major investments in green energy, including a fully funded Civilian Climate Corps. Joining the protests was New York Democratic Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who said there was no time to waste in preventing climate catastrophe.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: “What a lot of folks here in D.C. don’t understand is that while this may be the hottest summer of their lives, it’s going to be one of the coolest summers of our lives. And so what that means is that they brought this heat on us, so we bring the heat on them.”
…
Federal Judge Throws Out Antitrust Lawsuits Seeking to Break Up Facebook
A federal judge has thrown out two antitrust lawsuits seeking to force Facebook to divest from WhatsApp and Instagram. U.S. District Court Judge Jeb Boasberg — a George W. Bush appointee — ruled the Federal Trade Commission failed to provide enough evidence to make a case that Facebook operated a monopoly. The judge gave the FTC 30 days to file an amended lawsuit. In a second ruling, Judge Boasberg threw out another antitrust suit brought by 46 state attorneys general, ruling they waited too long to bring their claims. The court rulings sent Facebook’s share prices soaring, bringing CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s estimated personal wealth to over $128 billion, while Facebook’s market capitalization topped $1 trillion for the first time.
…
California Bans State-Funded Travel to 17 States with Anti-LGBTQ+ Laws
California will restrict state-funded travel to Arkansas, Florida, Montana, North Dakota and West Virginia, bringing to 17 the number of states sanctioned by California over their discriminatory policies toward LGBTQ+ people. California Attorney General Rob Bonta cited recently passed laws banning transgender youth from playing sports and blocking access to life-saving gender-affirming healthcare.
Attorney General Rob Bonta: “There is a coordinated attack against our fundamental civil rights. And the fact is, when states discriminate against LGBTQ Americans, California law requires our office to take action. And that’s what we’re doing today.”
Human Rights Court Holds Honduran State Responsible for Killing of Trans Woman Vicky Hernández
In Honduras, LGBTQ+ rights advocates are celebrating a historic ruling by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights declaring the Honduran state responsible for the 2009 killing of Vicky Hernández — a transgender woman. Hernández was assassinated on June 28, the day a U.S.-backed coup overthrew former democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya, installing a right-wing regime. Hernández was a sex worker and was out during a military curfew. The landmark ruling was issued Monday, on the 12th anniversary of the U.S.-backed coup in Honduras, and mandates reparations for Hernández’s family and for Honduras to reopen her case.
Mexican Supreme Court Decriminalizes Adult Use of Marijuana
Mexico’s Supreme Court has decriminalized the use of marijuana for adults. The court’s ruling comes after the Mexican Congress failed to enact legislation legalizing recreational use of marijuana by the end of April — a deadline set by the Supreme Court. While many celebrated the ruling, some critics warned there are still legal loopholes that could criminalize people for cultivating or distributing marijuana. Efforts to legalize marijuana in Mexico are also aimed at curbing drug violence in the country. Since the U.S.-backed war on drugs was launched in 2006, over 300,000 people have been killed.
…
Olympian Gwen Berry Turns Back on U.S. Flag in Protest Against Systemic Racism
U.S. Olympic hammer thrower Gwen Berry is facing backlash after turning her back to the U.S. flag while the national anthem played during a medal ceremony at the U.S. Olympic trials in Eugene, Oregon, Saturday. Toward the end of the anthem, Berry turned away from the flag and placed a black T-shirt with the words “Activist Athlete” on her head. Following the nonviolent protest, Berry said, “My purpose and my mission is bigger than sports. I’m here to represent those … who died due to systemic racism. That’s the important part. That’s why I’m going. That’s why I’m here today.” Berry is a longtime activist, who famously raised her fist during the Star-Spangled Banner after winning gold at the 2019 Pan American Games.
At least 300 Finns who went to cheer on the national team at the Euro 2020 football tournament have contracted Covid, health officials have said.
The daily infection rate in Finland has gone up from around 50 a day to more than 200 in the past week and the figure is likely to grow in the coming days, they said, though the overall impact of the virus in the country remains limited.
It is evident that the returning fans caused a rise in Finland’s daily infections, Reuters reported Mika Salminen, head of security at the Finnish Health Institute, as saying. “Looking at their age division, it is clear that not that many of them have gotten two vaccine doses yet,” he added.
According to local health authorities, more than 200 infections caught in Russia have been detected in people living in the metropolitan area around the capital Helsinki.
“A key question is, will we see infection chains. It now looks like we cannot move to a level of lower restrictions in the Helsinki area,” Salminen told Reuters.
The institute has estimated that 4,500-6,000 football fans went over to the Russian city of St Petersburg to watch the games.
The authorities are still trying to track down everyone who attended the event and warn they may have passed the virus on to friends and family during the midsummer festivities last weekend.
Finland remains among the countries least affected by the pandemic. The nation of 5.5 million people has recorded 95,387 infections, 969 deaths and has 29 people hospitalised due to Covid-19.
…In related news, the Scottish first minister has said she thinks there is a link between Scotland fans travelling for Euro 2020 games and the rise in Covid cases in Scotland.
ravensays
Businessinsider 6/29/2021
The basement garage of the Miami-area apartment building that partly collapsed would regularly flood, according to multiple sources.
The accounts add to the list of problems with the building which have emerged since its collapse Thursday, which has killed at least 11 people and left some 150 more unaccounted for.
William Espinosa told CBS 4 Miami that he was responsible for maintenance at Champlain Towers South between 1995 and 2000. He said that sea water would seep into the buildings foundations and employees would use pumps to drain it.
“The water would just basically sit there, and then it would just seep downward,” Espinosa said. “I’m talking about a foot, sometimes two feet, of water in the bottom of the parking lot, the whole parking lot.”
We’ve all read about and seen the Miami condo building that collapsed.
Buildings just aren’t supposed to collapse with people in them.
The obvious question is how and why it collapsed.
It might well have to do with global warming and rising sea levels.
It turns out that the foundation that the building sat on was regularly flooded with sea water.
Sea water will cause concrete to spall and crack. It will also rust the rebar steel.
The building’s supports were all steel reinforced concrete.
If that is the case, it isn’t looking so good for any buildings close to the ocean.
Because the rising sea levels that totally aren’t happening because global warming is a hoax, are going to just keep on totally not rising because melting ice doesn’t care what you believe.
I’m sure the number is in the tens of thousands at the least.
The New York Times has reported on the split between World Health Organisation guidance and that of the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, which as opposed to the WHO does not recommend vaccinated people wear masks indoors or distance from others.
Asked yesterday about the new cautions expressed by the WHO – amid fears over the Delta variant – a CDC spokesman gave no indication its guidance would change.
Dr Mariângela Simão, WHO assistant director-general for access to medicines, vaccines and pharmaceuticals, has recently emphasised that even vaccinated people should continue to consistently wear masks, avoid crowds and maintain social distance from others, the NYT reports
“What we’re saying is, ‘Once you’ve been fully vaccinated, continue to play it safe, because you could end up as part of a transmission chain.’ You may not actually be fully protected,” Dr Bruce Aylward, senior WHO adviser, said on Friday.
In Israel, which has one of the highest vaccination rates, a rise in cases attributed to the Delta variant has seen mask mandates reimposed indoors and at large outdoor gatherings.
Royal Caribbean International has said it would require unvaccinated guests over 12 years of age traveling from Florida to show proof of insurance that covers Covid-19 related medical expenses, quarantine and evacuation.
The latest policy change comes as the cruise operator’s parent Royal Caribbean Group began sailing from US ports and has a number of trips planned after more than a year of anchoring ships, Reuters reports.
Russia will fail to vaccinate 60% of its population against Covid by the autumn as planned due to sluggish demand for the shots, the Kremlin has said, after the country recorded its highest number of daily deaths from the virus.
Russian authorities have blamed a recent surge in Covid-19 cases on the infectious Delta variant, which they say accounts for around 90% of all new cases, and on the reluctance of many Russians to get vaccinated, Reuters reports.
Low uptake, despite free and widely available vaccines, has seen the authorities in some regions to introduce compulsory vaccination for some workers and to create incentives for others such as offering the chance to win a car or an apartment.
“It’s clear that this vaccination target cannot be achieved. Targets will be pushed back,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call.
At a government meeting today, health minister Mikhail Murashko said that 23 million people had received at least the first dose of a two-shot vaccine, while Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin said he hopes that up to 2 million people would be vaccinated in the Russian capital within the next six weeks.
The government’s coronavirus task force said today that 652 people had died as a result of the virus in the past 24 hours, a record daily high.
[…]
Andrew Giuliani, son of former New York mayor-cum-Trump attorney[lickspittle] Rudy Giuliani, received no votes in a poll of state Republican leaders about the party’s next choice for governor of New York state.
The poll was not binding but it indicated that Lee Zeldin, a Long Island congressman, is the presumptive Republican nominee to challenge Andrew Cuomo next year.
It will likely be seen as an embarrassment to Giuliani, whose bid for governor of one of America’s biggest states has largely traded off his famous surname more than any meaningful experience of practical politics.
[…]
Zeldin is closely aligned with the Trumpist wing of the national Republican party. In January he was one of 147 Republicans[thugsRussian agents] in Congress who backed attempts to overturn electoral college results.
Despite the result of the straw poll, Giuliani trumpeted the results of a survey commissioned by his own campaign, which put him eight points clear of Zeldin.
Proud to be the FAVORITE of The 2.9 Million Registered New York Republicans!!! he tweeted. We are the Peoples Candidate!!!!!! Together WE WILL TAKE DOWN Andrew Cuomo on 8 November 2022.
His poll surveyed 587 Republicans statewide.
Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans in New York by nearly three to one. No Republican has won statewide office since 2002, when George Pataki won a third term as governor.
[…]
In his new book, the journalist Michael Wolff depicts the former mayor [Nosferatu Sr] in the White House in the last days of the Trump presidency, “drinking heavily and in a constant state of excitation, often almost incoherent in his agitation and mania”.
[…]
blfsays
Apropos of nothing, and not at all political, lunch today was a rarity in France: Not too good. Some years ago a large (for the area / village) States-owned chain hotel opened in the village. They have a large terraced restaurant, but until recently, it never seemed busy. I also noticed the restaurant’s management / menu kept changing. All the signs of a unexceptional place: Chain hotel restaurant, never busy, never any locals, new “team” every year or so, and the adjacent terraced hotel bar is never open.
However, recently, they’ve been quite busy (even a few locals), and a friend told me they’re worth a try. So I had lunch there today. The staff were good — friendly, helpful, attentive but not intruding — the location is good, the weather was good, and the local vin was good. The food? Not so much… overambitious, I’d say — good ideas poorly executed. Certainly not worth the price (overpriced since I expect most of the hotel’s guests are on expenses).
Here’s a link to the June 30 Guardian coronavirus world liveblog.
From their morning summary:
The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, has sacked several senior party officials over a “grave” coronavirus incident that had threatened public safety, fuelling speculation that the coronavirus has breached the country’s defences.
The state-run KCNA news agency quoted Kim as telling a meeting of the ruling party’s politburo that: “In neglecting important decisions by the party that called for organisational, material and science and technological measures to support prolonged anti-epidemic work in face of a global health crisis, the officials in charge have caused a grave incident that created a huge crisis for the safety of the country and its people.”
Thailand reported a record 53 Covid-19 fatalities on Wednesday and 4,786 infections, as the country struggles to contain its most severe outbreak since the start of the pandemic. The government has stopped short of imposing a full lockdown, but introduced new restrictions this week.
Russia reported 669 coronavirus-related deaths nationwide, the most confirmed in a single day since the pandemic began, amid a surge in cases that authorities blame on the Delta variant. The government coronavirus taskforce also confirmed 21,042 new Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours.
Vladimir Putin said this morning that he had received Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine earlier this year. He had previously declined to disclose which vaccine he had taken.
Japan is considering an extension of its coronavirus prevention measures in Tokyo and other areas by two weeks to a month, Japanese media said, with less than a month to go until the Tokyo Summer Olympics are set to open.
South Korea’s capital, Seoul, and its neighbouring regions will delay by a week the relaxation of social distancing rules due to a sudden increase in Covid cases.
England fans are being warned against trying to travel to Rome for the Euro 2020 quarter final match with Ukraine. Current restrictions require visitors from the UK to quarantine for five days upon arrival.
…
France is likely to have a fourth wave of the virus, due to a resurgence of cases caused by the Delta variant, said Prof Jean-François Delfraissy, the French government’s leading scientific adviser.
…
Brazil is to suspend its $324m Indian vaccine contract that has mired President Jair Bolsonaro in accusations of irregularities.
…
In Australia, a number of state governments have directly criticised the commonwealth’s new position on the AstraZeneca vaccine, with Queensland saying that it does “not want under-40s to get AstraZeneca” and Victoria accusing Scott Morrison of creating unnecessary confusion.
The Australian state of Queensland has just eight days of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine left. The state’s health minister, Dr Yvette D’ath, said the federal government had denied Queensland’s request for more doses of the Pfizer vaccine.
Also in Australia, Aboriginal organisations have expressed frustration at the Northern Territory government’s “flawed” pandemic response, demanding it do more to accommodate hundreds of Aboriginal people sleeping rough around town centres they say are at risk of Covid-19.
On Sunday, the small mountain town of Lytton, British Columbia, became one of the hottest places in the world. Then, on Monday, Lytton got even hotter – 47.9C (118F – hotter than it’s ever been in Las Vegas, 1,300 miles to the south.
Lytton is at 50 deg N latitude – about the same as London. This part of the world should never get this hot. Seattle’s new all-time record of 108F, also set Monday, is hotter than it’s ever been in Miami. In Portland, the new record of 116F would beat the warmest day ever recorded in Houston by nearly 10 degrees.
This heat wave was a perfect storm long in the making. After centuries of fossil fuel burning and decades of warnings from scientists, it’s time to say it: we are in a climate emergency.
…
The imagery we should remember from this heat wave isn’t swimming pools and fountains, it’s friends and neighbors sharing air conditioning amid a pandemic in a city that’s 40 degrees warmer than normal. It’s young people braving heat stroke to demand climate action from a president who promised it to them. It’s the anxiety of not knowing when or where the next heat wave will be, but knowing that it’s coming. It’s about surviving a society where decades of racial segregation means that redlined neighborhoods are 15 degrees hotter than others.
These are the kinds of events that should open our eyes and recognize that climate change is not a science issue, it’s a human rights issue.
While the temperatures have fallen in Seattle and Portland, this heat wave continues to rage for folks in eastern Washington. Farmworkers in the Yakima Valley will be dealing with temperatures over 100F (38C) until at least Monday – six more days. In parts of Pakistan and along the shores of the Persian Gulf, heat waves are already hitting temperatures that are too hot for even healthy people to survive outdoors.
This is a public health emergency.
If climate is what defines a place – the shape and character of our neighborhoods, the kinds of plants and animals that live nearby, the activities we can enjoy – then we are changing what makes us, us.
…
The most shocking part is that all this is happening with just two degrees Fahrenheit of global warming in the 150 years since we started burning fossil fuels on a large scale. On our current path, we’re heading for another three to five degrees of warming in half that time.
At this point, building a world that can thrive will require “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society” according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world’s leading body of climate scientists. Climate change isn’t just a thing that’s happening, it’s a series of choices made by actual people who are sharing this planet with us. Indigenous resistance to an economy built on extraction needs to be scaled up and combined with climate reparations to the people and places who are most affected.
…
We are in a climate emergency. We can’t wait for other people, we’ve got to do this ourselves. We were born at just the right moment to help change everything.
The longest running war crimes case will come to a head on Wednesday with a verdict at The Hague tribunal on two former Serbian secret police chiefs for their role in atrocities in Croatia and Bosnia.
It is historic not just because of its length, but also because of what it will say about Belgrade’s covert role in the 1992-95 Bosnian conflict and about the legal accountability of covert state sponsors of paramilitary groups.
“This exhaustively litigated case against two high-level Serbian officials is the litmus test to prove Belgrade’s orchestration of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Croatia during the early 1990s. The link to Belgrade’s leadership would be damning,” said David Scheffer, former US envoy on war crimes issues and vice-president of the American Society of International Law.
Jovica Stanišić, the former head of the state security service (DB) and his deputy, Franko “Frenki” Simatović, were first indicted in 2003 for allegedly arming and orchestrating paramilitary groups responsible for war crimes in the Croatian and Bosnian wars. They were once two of the most powerful men in Serbia. Stanišić was also reported to be a CIA informant and the agency took the unusual step of submitting a classified document to the court describing his help.
…
Stanišić and Simatović were key members of the regime of Slobodan Milošević, who tried to carve a greater Serbia out of the ruins of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. While Stanišić was in overall charge of the formidable DB secret police, Simatović ran its special operations unit.
Stanišić meanwhile appears to have played a double game. Former CIA officers told the Los Angeles Times in 2009 he had given the agency details of the inner workings of the regime, the location of Nato hostages and mass grave sites.
…
The case is the last major Balkan war crimes trial being handled by the international residual mechanism for criminal tribunals, the successor to both the ICTY and an equivalent court dealing with the Rwanda genocide. Ratko Mladić, the former Bosnian Serb military commander, lost his final appeal against his genocide and crimes against humanity convictions earlier this month.
If Stanišić and Simatović are convicted on Wednesday, it is unlikely to change minds in the region, especially among Serbs, who have tended to see war crimes evidence as politically motivated.
“If after all, Stanišić and Simatović would be sentenced for war crimes, it would be understood here as a part of political pressures that intensified lately,” Čedomir Antić, an historian at Belgrade University, who pointed to Stanišić’s reported CIA links. He added: “It could be understood only as an anti-Serb campaign.”
“People have already decided what they believe,” Vukušić said, but added that it would help inform historians of the era if the mass of secret evidence submitted in the two trials was made available.
“This is the longest legal saga in The Hague, to my knowledge at any court. It was also conducted, to a large extent, behind closed doors, presumably Serbia provided documents but on the condition they are not made public,” she said. “Now the question remains will these records ever be public?”
…The opposition to critical race theory may not precisely be a conspiracy theory, but many of the fears about it stem from misinformation and there are strong echoes of classic conspiracy tropes in the narrative that anti-CRT influencers such as Christopher Rufo and James Lindsay tell about it. Both Rufo and Lindsay present a narrative of the development of CRT by Black legal scholars in the 1980s that seeks to scandalize the influence of earlier leftist thinkers, as if Bell and Crenshaw were puppets of 1930s German Jewish intellectuals. The University of North Carolina professors Alice Marwick and Daniel Kreiss have described the campaign against CRT as “an all-out disinformation war” that invokes claims “buil[t] on long-standing antisemitic conspiracy theories about Marxism and the Frankfurt School”….
Much, much more atl. I have some issues with this piece, but I thought this portion worth highlighting.
Guardian world liveblog (support the Guardian if you can!):
Brazil saw a fall in life expectancy by 1.3 years last year amid the pandemic, returning to 2014 levels, with that figure continuing to widen slightly, according to a new report in the journal Nature Medicine.
The New York Times reports that Brazil has reported more than 514,000 deaths from Covid-19, a reported death toll surpassed only by that in the US which has lost more than 604,000 people.
The study said that between 1945 and 2020, life expectancy in Brazil increased from 45.5 years [!] to 76.7 years, an average of about five months per year, but the setbacks have reverted the country to the levels of seven years ago.
Marcia Castro, chair of the Department of Global Health and Population at Harvard, the lead author of the study, estimated along with her fellow researchers that the resulting decline in life expectancy for this year, based on the death toll recorded in the first four months of 2021, would be about 1.78 years.
When intense shocks like a pandemic or war occur, life expectancy drops, but it often rebounds quickly. This was the case with the 1918 influenza pandemic in the US, when [life expectancy at birth] in 1919 was higher than in 1917, likely due, in part, to selective mortality of individuals with tuberculosis. We argue that, in the case of COVID-19 in Brazil, the rebound will not happen in 2021, and the pre-pandemic trajectory of annual gains in [life expectancy at birth] will likely slow down.
States in the Amazon region, including Amazonas, Rondônia, Roraima and Mato Grosso, experienced the steepest declines in life expectancy last year.
The House passed a resolution Tuesday to expel Confederate statues from the US Capitol and replace its bust of Roger B. Taney, the chief justice who wrote the Dred Scott decision, with one honoring Thurgood Marshall, the first African American Supreme Court justice.
The vote was 285 to 120. Sixty-seven Republicans voted with 218 Democrats in support of the bill.
The House passed a similar resolution last year on a bipartisan basis but it stalled after Republicans in the Senate argued that the states should decide which statues they’d like to display in the Capitol. The legislation has a better chance to pass now that Democrats hold the Senate majority.
…
“It’s never too late to do the right thing, and this legislation would work to right a historic wrong while ensuring our Capitol reflects the principles and ideals of what Americans stand for,” said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer after he introduced the resolution again this year.
The House legislation would not only replace Taney’s bust in the old Supreme Court chamber and remove statues of those who voluntarily served the Confederacy against the United States in the Civil War, but also oust statues of three elected officials who defended slavery, segregation and White supremacy: John C. Calhoun, Charles Aycock and James P. Clarke.
…
Throughout the US Capitol, there are statues honoring soldiers and generals wearing Confederate uniforms, including Jefferson Davis, who was president of the Confederacy. A belt buckle on a statue of Joseph Wheeler, a general in the Confederate Army, is clearly marked with “CSA” for Confederate States of America.
Every state sends two statues of prominent residents to the Capitol as part of the National Statuary Hall Collection, and several states have already made plans to swap out their statues.
In 2016, Florida state lawmakers voted to replace its statue of Confederate Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith, but it still remains in the Capitol until a statue of civil rights leader Mary McLeod Bethune is made. Arkansas is pulling its controversial statues for the country music legend Johnny Cash and civil rights leader Daisy Bates.
And in December, Virginia decided to remove its statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee and replace it with one honoring Barbara Rose Johns, an African American woman who played a key role in the civil rights movement.
It’s not entirely clear from that text, but all of the 120 votes against the resolution were from Republicans, almost all from the South. 67 Republicans voted for it and 120 voted against it.
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem deploys National Guard to U.S-Mexico Border
Yacob ReyesTue, June 29, 2021,
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) announced Tuesday that up to 50 of her state’s National Guard troops are being deployed to the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas at the request of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
The big picture: The deployment to the border is slated to last 30–60 days and will be paid for by a private donation, Noem’s office said. The details of the mission have yet to be finalized.
This is pretty strange.
South Dakota is hiring out its National Guard to a private individual to do something in…Texas.
This looks like a clear abuse of power and abuse of the US military for GOP political purposes.
To make it even stranger, it is apparently legal.
Also, AFAIK, the National Guard has no police powers in the USA.
The Posse Comitas act says that the US military can’t be used for domestic law enforcement purposes.
In a clip from his web show uploaded online Monday, the racist and anti-Semitic media personality Nicholas Fuentes said that if “Finnish fishermen” replaced Black Americans in Chicago’s south side, “it would probably look a lot more like America than it does now” and “they wouldn’t litter, and they wouldn’t be shooting each other, and they wouldn’t selling drugs.”
Also on Monday: An advertisement circulating online announced that a sitting congressman, Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), would appear at a fundraiser with Fuentes in Arizona this week.
Neither Gosar’s congressional nor his campaign office responded to TPM’s request to confirm that the congressman would actually be showing face with Fuentes this week. And Gosar himself, within minutes of this article’s publication, told a reporter, “I have no idea what was going on. I’ve never heard anything like that. I have nothing on my schedule.”
But the congressman seemed to nod at the event on his personal Twitter account, referencing “America First” — the name of Fuentes’ show and self-styled political clique — and saying, “We will not let the left dictate our strategy, alliances and efforts. Ignore the left.”
And it wouldn’t be the first time: In a major coup for Fuentes and his America First Political Action Conference, a far-right alternative to the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, Gosar appeared at AFPAC in February.
During a speech that night right after Gosar took the stage, Fuentes warned against the loss of America’s “white demographic core” and said the Capitol attack was “awesome!” The following day, Fuentes posted a photo to Twitter of himself and the congressman at a restaurant, captioning it a “great meeting.” (Across town in a panel at CPAC — both events were held in Orlando — Gosar said, “I denounce when we talk about white racism” without referring to Fuentes by name.)
Fuentes’ credentials as a bigot are beyond reproach.
…
Gosar has his own history, including previously following openly racist accounts on his personal Twitter page.
Fuentes and his movement — members of which sometimes call themselves “groypers” — have, of course, reveled in the attention that the announced Gosar fundraiser has brought them.
If Gosar does boost the group with yet another appearance this week, the benefit to Fuentes’ racist and anti-Semitic cause will likely out-value whatever fundraising money the congressman brings in.
There could soon be “two Americas”, one where most people are vaccinated and another where there are low vaccination rates, top US health official Dr Anthony Fauci has warned.
The US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases chief and the top medical advisor to the president told CNN he is “very concerned” about a disparity between places with low and high vaccination rates
When you have such a low level of vaccination superimposed upon a variant that has a high degree of efficiency of spread, what you are going to see among under-vaccinated regions – be that states, cities or counties – you’re going to see these individual types of blips … It’s almost like it’s going to be two Americas.
If you are vaccinated, you diminish dramatically your risk of getting infected and even more dramatically your risk of getting seriously ill. If you are not vaccinated, you are at considerable risk.
CNN reports that 29.7% of the population is fully vaccinated in Mississippi, and that unvaccinated people have accounted for more than 90% of Covid-19 cases and deaths in the past month, according to Dr. Thomas Dobbs, the state health officer for the Mississippi Department of Public Health.
Mississippi joins Alabama, Arkansas, Wyoming, and Louisiana in having less than 35% of residents fully vaccinated, with entrenched scepticism over vaccines in some communities and concerns that the jabs have not received full approval appearing to lead to significant resistance.
Cases of Covid-19 are declining in North America, but in most of Latin America and the Caribbean an end to the pandemic “remains a distant future”, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) director Carissa Etienne has said.
While infections in the United States, Canada and Mexico are falling, in Latin America and the Caribbean just one in ten people have been fully vaccinated against Covd-19, “an unacceptable situation,” she said in a briefing.
Etienne warned that the hurricane season in the Caribbean is arriving at a time when outbreaks are worsening and she urged countries to outfit hospitals and expand shelters to reduce the potential for transmission, Reuters reports.
The UK has recorded a further 26,068 cases of Covid-19, the highest daily figure since 29 January, and 14 further deaths, official data shows.
Daily cases have been rising for more than a month, but fatalities have remained low, with scientists saying the rapid vaccine rollout has weakened the link between infections and deaths. The UK recorded 20,479 cases the day before. The data showed that 84.9% of adults have had a first vaccine while 62.4% have had both.
Two Serbian secret police chiefs have been sentenced by the Hague war crimes tribunal to 12 years in prison for their role in atrocities during the Bosnian war.
Jovica Stanišić, the former head of the state security service (DB) and his deputy, Franko “Frenki” Simatović, who ran DB’s special forces, were ruled to have been “involved in providing some support” to the Serb paramilitaries who carried out ethnic cleansing in the Bosnian town of Bosanski Šamac.
The ruling marks the first time senior Serbian officials from Slobodan Milošević’s regime in the 1990s have been found guilty for war crimes committed in Bosnia.
…
Announcing the verdict, Bahamian judge Burton Hall said the prosecution had failed in most cases to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the two men orchestrated crimes committed by Serb paramilitaries across Croatia and Bosnia.
But Hall said there was proof of their involvement and legal responsibility for killings in Bosanski Šamac.
“The trial chamber does not find the accused responsible for planning, ordering or abetting any other charged crime,” Hall said.
…
…The defendants are expected to appeal the verdict.
“The most interesting detail about the statement of offense against Mark Grods, ANOTHER Oath Keeper cooperating with the govt, is that he was in the golf carts from the Willard Hotel (where Roger Stone was).”
The new C-SPAN poll of presidential historians is out! Always interesting to see how reputations rise and fall. In two decades, Ike shot up from #9 to #5 and stays there. Obama moves into the top ten. ….
Meanwhile, Woodrow Wilson has fallen from #6 to #13, and Polk had also dropped from #12 to #18. Bill Clinton had moved up from #21 in 2000 to #15 in 2017, but now slips back to #19. ….
No surprise that Trump makes his debut in the bottom five. The pathetic James Buchanan retains his lock on last place — but Trump finds himself behind a guy who only served in office for a month before he died.
Trump is ranked dead last in two sub-categories — moral authority and administrative skills. He does pretty poorly on most others, but economic management was his best result — he was ranked #34. (That’s also Bill Clinton’s best result — he ranked #5 in that category.)
Here’s a link to the full survey:…
Oops, Trump ranked highest on public persuasion, not economic management. Here’s his full score sheet. There have been 44 presidents — Grover Cleveland served non consecutive terms — that 44 is last place.
Here’s Obama’s score sheet since some people were asking for it. Obama scored in the top ten in five different categories….
In the short term, the plan apparently includes the formation of a new group on Capitol Hill: Utah’s John Curtis last week formed the Conservative Climate Caucus, which will apparently reject “radical progressive climate proposals,” but cultivate conservative-friendly solutions.
This arbitrary limitation renders their project intellectually dishonest. Whether or not a proposed response will be adequate or effective depends on the nature of the problem, and some problems – like AGW – are radical in nature and require radical action. Global warming doesn’t give a shit about their ideology or their donors’ profits.
Thanks for calling out the arbitrary nature of the approach those conservative legislators are taking.
I think they are just looking for a way to keep some Republican voters who do want to see action on climate change in the GOP tent. And of course, they want that sweet donor money from clueless donors to continue rolling into their coffers.
This approach is bad news for everyone. Pretending to address climate change gives them a cover-your-ass set of talking points that simply obscures the need for real action.
“Breaking: The Trump Organization and its CFO [Allen Weisselberg] are expected to be charged with tax-related crimes by Manhattan prosecutors Thursday, people familiar with the matter say…”
WSJ link atl. NBC confirmed. Weisselberg’s ex-daughter-in-law (Jennifer Weisselberg) was on MSNBC earlier and suggested that he might have been involved in illegal dealings surrounding the inauguration when Trump was occupying the Oval Office.
This approach is bad news for everyone. Pretending to address climate change gives them a cover-your-ass set of talking points that simply obscures the need for real action.
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D) vetoed new voting restrictions approved by Republican state legislators. Philadelphia Inquirer link
“This bill is ultimately not about improving access to voting or election security, but about restricting the freedom to vote,” Wolf said in a statement. “If adopted, it would threaten to disrupt election administration, undermine faith in government, and invite costly, time-consuming, and destabilizing litigation.”
Most of New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu’s (R) diversity council resigned in protest this week, pointing to the governor’s willingness to sign a new state law restricting how state employees — including public school teachers — can talk about racism. Sununu is currently weighing a possible U.S. Senate campaign next year.
Over the last week, how many days has Trump spent lashing out at Republicans? All of them. The common thread: he expects fealty to the Big Lie.
The New York Times took a look overnight at how far Wisconsin Republicans have gone to make Donald Trump happy, which is emblematic of a larger truth.
Wisconsin Republicans have already gone to great lengths to challenge the 2020 election results. They ordered a monthslong government audit of votes in the state. They made a pilgrimage to Arizona to observe the G.O.P. review of votes there. They hired former police officers to investigate Wisconsin’s election and its results. And they have followed the lead of other G.O.P.-controlled states in passing a raft of new voting restrictions, though they are certain to be vetoed by Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat.
As the Times added, none of this has satisfied the former president. On the contrary, Trump has lashed out at Wisconsin Republicans, accusing top GOP state lawmakers of “working hard to cover up election corruption” and “actively trying to prevent a Forensic Audit of the election results.”
There’s no great mystery here: Trump expects Republican officials in Wisconsin to take steps to make it appear he won their state, despite actual vote tallies showing him coming up short. […]
But stepping back, consider the pattern from the last week:
Wednesday, June 23: Trump issued a statement lashing out at Gov. Doug Ducey (R) for “failing to perform” on the former president’s election conspiracy theories.
Thursday, June 24: Trump issued a statement condemning his Republican allies in Michigan’s state legislature for discrediting his election conspiracy theories.
Friday, June 25: Trump issued a statement blasting his Republican allies in Wisconsin’s state legislature for not doing more to pursue his fraudulent election conspiracy theories.
Saturday, June 26: Trump held a rally in Ohio to support a primary campaign against Republican Rep. Anthony Gonzalez, who voted to hold Trump accountable for his actions on Jan. 6.
Sunday, June 27: Trump issued a statement condemning former Attorney General Bill Barr and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) as “spineless RINOs” for not taking his election conspiracy theories more seriously.
Monday, June 28: Trump issued a statement slamming Mitch McConnell again for, among other things, never having “fought for the White House.”
Tuesday, June 29: Trump issued a statement demanding new Senate Republican leadership. […]
More of the same wildly bonkers blathering from Hair Furor. One wonders when the fact that he is never happy with his underlings will sink in and the underlings will all run for the exits.
Republicans don’t have a policy agenda, but Kevin McCarthy hopes to change that with new “task forces.” There’s a reason this will almost certainly fail.
Congressional Republicans are not only uninterested in governing, they also haven’t bothered to craft anything resembling a policy agenda. In fact, it was just last summer when Republican officials decided they’d go without a party platform for the first time since 1854.
But as House Republicans find themselves directionless and powerless, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) announced yesterday that he and his colleagues have a new policymaking plan. It apparently involves “task forces.” From the House GOP leader’s latest statement:
“When Republicans retake the majority, we will come prepared to implement policies that will actually solve problems and improve people’s lives. That is why earlier this year I informed the conference that we would be rolling out Republican Task Forces designed to tackle the several crises that currently threaten our great nation. Today, I am proud to formally announce both the task force leaders and the full list of members who will be fighting to better our country for all Americans. These task forces will be critical in building consensus around ideas to continue to build on our Commitment to America and ensure that the next century is an American one.”
There are seven task forces in all, with panels focusing on economic policy, “Big Tech censorship,” the “future of American freedoms,” energy policy, security issues, health care, and “accountability” for China. Serving on these various panels will be 111 House Republicans — roughly half of the larger House GOP conference.
To be sure, it’s certainly possible that the Republicans on these task forces will roll up their sleeves, engage in rigorous study, explore detailed policy solutions with experts and stakeholders, and spend the next several months putting the finishing touches on a credible governing agenda that can stand up to real scrutiny. [LOL LOL LOL]
[…] Making matters worse is the House Republicans’ bench.
[…] the panel devoted to the “future of American freedoms” will ostensibly be focused on “restor[ing] American ideals like the rule of law and separation of powers.” It will be led, however, by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who’ll work alongside the likes of Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.).
[…] “A panel on ‘American Security,’ will include Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.), who likened the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol to a ‘normal tourist visit,’ as well as Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), who has espoused conspiracy theories that the attack wasn’t committed by supporters of former President Donald Trump.”
Making matters slightly worse, task forces themselves hardly inspire confidence. “Big Tech censorship” is a made-up issue, and the idea that a health care panel — led in part by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) — will come up with a credible plan after more than a decade of GOP failure on the issue is difficult to take seriously. […]
State Rep. Jim Walsh of Aberdeen, Washington, decided to make a spectacle of himself this past weekend. First reported on by the Seattle Times, Walsh showed up at a Lacey church basketball gym to give a speech to “conservative activists” while wearing a yellow star affixed to his shirt. The yellow Star of David was a symbol that Jews were forced to wear by the Nazis in order to identify them. Many of the Jews forced to wear this yellow symbol were exterminated by the Nazis during the Holocaust.
Walsh, who is not Jewish, gave a speech about “Constitutional rights” to a group of about 100 conservatives and told them you have the “right to live as you choose to live it.” It turns out that the anchor for Walsh’s speech is that anti-vaxxer activism is the result of the American dream and proves the integrity of the conservative movement.* […] Walsh responded to someone asking about the “yellow star on Jim’s shirt,” explaining: “It’s an echo from history … In the current context, we’re all Jews.” Walsh also wrote in the comments to “see my note below.”
[…] Walsh’s “note below” was another response he made to a similar comment, writing: “During WWII, when the Nazis told the Danes that Danish Jews had to wear yellow stars, the Danes ALL wore yellow stars. So the Nazis couldn’t ID the Danish Jews. It worked. The Nazis focused their evil efforts elsewhere.” Trying to analogize public health officials’ pushes for Americans to get free vaccinations—proven to literally save the lives of anybody of any race, creed, or religion—against the global pandemic […] with Nazis creating identification symbols for Jewish citizens in areas the Nazis had invaded for the purpose of later “deporting” them to concentration camps where they would be exterminated … is offensive.
It’s offensive to the millions of Jews murdered during the Holocaust, and the millions more Jews whose families were destroyed by the Holocaust. It is offensive to history. It isn’t even a real thing. […] the myth that the Danes all wore yellow stars in solidarity—or that King Christian X of Denmark wore a yellow star in solidarity with his countrymen—is just that: a myth. The myth has some truth to it in that when the Nazis occupied Denmark, the Danish did not turn their backs on their Jewish brothers and sisters. But this easy-to-digest oversimplification of how people struggle against history and form solidarity in the face of real fascism is bogus.
Dee Simon, executive director of Seattle’s Holocaust Center for Humanity, told the Seattle Times: “Our government is making an effort to protect their own citizens, not kill them.” […]
While the state of Washington has not mandated vaccinations against COVID-19, it has created a requirement that businesses that want to lift their mask requirements must also verify that their employees are vaccinated.
[…] Walsh’s rhetoric isn’t rooted in anything more than a whitewashing of history, placing himself and mostly white people on the receiving end of the foot of oppression. The irony of course is that at every point in the history Walsh is coopting for his political gain, a person almost identical to Walsh was the oppressing force. […] Walsh gave this third-grader’s response: “Some people are offended by having to provide vaccine documentation at their work.
This analogy only works if in providing vaccine documentation to your workplace you were subjected to being arrested, having all of your possessions taken from you, your family split up, and then were forced to work on a labor camp until you were murdered by the state—violently. […]
Yeah, we know that Biden, and the U.S. government in general have not done enough to address climate change. (Understatement.) Biden commented on that recently, and he pointed out that at least his administration has taken some good first steps.
As recording-breaking temperatures and the wildfire season roil the Western United States, President Joe Biden touted his bipartisan infrastructure deal as part of the federal government’s remedy for climate relief.
“We also have to make investments in our future,” Biden said at a meeting on Wednesday. “That’s why the bipartisan infrastructure framework investment of about $50 billion … is going to build resilience to extreme weather events like wildfires. $50 billion.”
At the mixed in-person and virtual roundtable hosted by the White House, Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and more than a dozen federal officials spoke to Western state Govs. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.), Kate Brown (D-Ore.), Spencer Cox (R-Utah), Mark Gordon (R-Wyo.), Jay Inslee (D-Wash.), Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-N.M.), Jared Polis (D-Colo.), and Steve Sisolak (D-Nev.).
The current heat wave and drought has melted power cables in some parts of the West and caused roads to crack in others, in addition to the health risks the weather poses to children, the elderly and the un-housed populations in the region.
“Investment in prevention and preparation today will bring valuable returns tomorrow,” Biden said.
Biden also called on governors to tell his administration what they needed in order to respond to extreme weather events. He added that there would be coordination among federal, state, local and tribal governments during this year’s wildfire season.
“We gotta make lemonades out of lemons here,” Biden said, at the end of the public portion of the meeting. “We have a chance to do something that not only deals with the problem today, but allows us to be in a position to move forward — and create real good jobs, by the way, generate economic growth.”
“Gen. Mark Milley’s greatest fear is upsetting the woke mob,” Trump said in a statement released through his Save America super PAC.
“Gen. Milley ought to resign, and be replaced with someone who is actually willing to defend our Military from the Leftist Radicals who hate our Country and our Flag,” Trump added.
Yeah, Trump is still simple-minded and obnoxious. This is just Hair Furor trying to jump on the anti-critical-race-theory-band-wagon while it is in motion.
The general’s recently defended studying critical race theory in the military, although the the military doesn’t exactly feature studies in that field. “So what is wrong with understanding, having some situational understanding about the country which we are here to defend?”
Hair Furor had more to say, including disparaging an upcoming book that details a shouting match he and the general reportedly got into over Milley’s refusal to lead the military in cracking down on racial justice protesters last summer. We no longer need to fact-check every one of Trump’s lies. He is a doofus, shouting into the wind. Fewer and fewer people can hear him.
Former President Obama issued a warning about the political misinformation that preceded the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, when Congress met to certify President Biden’s electoral win, saying “we should all be worried.”
Obama, speaking during the closing event of the American Library Association’s annual conference on Tuesday, said he saw “some of these trends” of the growing spread and acceptance of misinformation during his own time in office.
“But to see not only a riot in the Capitol around what historically had been a routine process of certifying an election, but to know that one of our two major political parties, a strong majority of people in this party, actually believed in a falsehood about those election results, the degree to which misinformation is now disseminated at warp speed in coordinated ways that we haven’t seen before,” he explained, according to CNN.
“And that the guardrails I thought were in place around many of our democratic institutions really depend on the two parties agreeing to those ground rules and that one of them right now doesn’t seem as committed to them as in previous generations — that worries me,” Obama added while speaking to moderator and former Smithsonian secretary Lonnie Bunch.
“And I think we should all be worried,” he added. […]
“One of the perpetrators of that, not the originator of it, but somebody who surfed that for their own advantage was my successor, Donald Trump,” Obama said. “And we saw how powerful the constellation of conservative media outlets, talk radio, and then, ultimately, all this gets turbo charged with social media, how powerful that is.”
[…] “Around the world, we have seen once vibrant democracies go into reverse, locking in power for a small group of powerful autocrats and business interests and locking out of the political process dissidents and protesters and opposition parties and the voices of ordinary people,” he said at the time.
“It is happening in other places around the world and these impulses have crept into the United States,” he added. “We are not immune from some of these efforts to weaken our democracy.”
Lynna@264, So, I think we should organize a movement where people dress as Leprechauns and wear pink hearts green moons, etc. and tell people Walsh is just part of a big bowl of Lucky Charms.
“I’m so angry. Every time I talk about it I get emotional because I could have been dead. It was a life-to-death situation and nobody was trying to help me,” Mildred said […]
A victim of domestic violence, she recounted desperately searching for a new place to live in Westchester County, New York. She had obtained a Section 8 housing voucher — a federal program that helps qualifying low-income tenants afford their rent — but just when she thought she’d found a new home for herself and her children away from her alleged abuser, she says she became the victim of discrimination. […]
Housing voucher recipients don’t just face the normal barriers to finding an affordable place to live. They can also face a little-known but insidious form of discrimination called “source of income discrimination,” where landlords refuse to rent to people with Section 8 housing vouchers or certain other types of legal income. […] in 2019 New York passed a law banning the practice.
Yet it still happens in the state.
After Mildred told her landlord that she would be paying with a voucher, she and her lawyers say the landlord strung her along before taking the place off the market. She says it took her nearly four months to find a new place, all while living in fear of further abuse.
Stories like Mildred’s are what prompted a watchdog group called Housing Rights Initiative (HRI) to take action. On Wednesday, the group and the law firm Newman Ferrara are filing a suit […] in New York state court against 36 realtors, brokers, and landlords, including Keller Williams Realty and a franchise of the international firm Century 21, alleging source of income discrimination.
HRI spent eight months quietly running a systematic testing program, auditing landlords and realtors to weed out discriminatory agents and practices. Instead of just searching to find people like Mildred who believe they have experienced this type of discrimination, the organization followed in the long tradition of civil rights lawyers and organizations by sending testers to determine if housing providers were illegally discriminating against their clients. HRI hired and trained testers to call and text inquiring about available units, giving them profiles representative of low-income tenants like Mildred to see if agents were illegally discriminating. Despite New York’s statute prohibiting discrimination against Section 8 recipients, they say they found blatant forms of discrimination.
Out of hundreds of phone calls, HRI selected the cases where it found a realtor or landlord explicitly rejected a prospective tenant for inquiring whether they could pay with a voucher. But while landlords and realtors often ignore inquiries or in some other subtle way discourage tenants from pursuing a specific property, there are many more egregious forms of source of income discrimination.
“The one takeaway from our investigation is that housing discrimination is alive and well in the United States of America,” HRI’s executive director Aaron Carr [said]
[…] The most striking thing about the HRI phone calls, of which some of the audio is included throughout this article, is their banality. The people on the other end of the line don’t yell or utter racial or gendered epithets; they don’t even really express any hostility toward the undercover testers. In some cases, they even express sympathy. But that sentiment paired with the result of their words is jarring. In each of these cases, the defendant is denying a low-income tenant a place to live. And, HRI and its legal team argue, that’s not just personally devastating for the tenant, it may be illegal and even unconstitutional.
These phone calls paint a picture of discrimination in America that is so woven into the fabric of the housing market that some of these landlords and realtors felt free enough to put allegedly unlawful activity in writing. […]
Sometimes discrimination is a quiet voice at the end of the line saying, “No, they’re not allowing any voucher programs in the unit, miss.” […]
More at the link, including a summary of the legal battles.
Glorious readers, it’s time to meet Wisconsin Republican Senate President Chris Kapenga, who probably ought to wash his tongue after the letter he just delivered unto Dear Leader Trump, begging for his approval and desperately trying to prove his devotion. It is the most embarrassing thing we have ever seen from a person who is ostensibly a grown man. […]
“Wisconsin Republican Senate President”???! WTF?
[…] what happened was that Donald Trump is whining, like he does, because in his beady little eyes he doesn’t think Wisconsin Republicans are serving their true father Trump enough, by making up imaginary voter fraud stories about the 2020 election like they’re doing in Arizona and other places. And here they thought they were doing a whole lot! Regardless, they are now upping their efforts to please Trump, lest he turn his gaze from them and refuse them entry into His Holy Kingdom.
So Kapenga decided he had to, meekly and respectfully and couched in slobbering praise, correct Dear Leader’s misconceptions, as he begged not to be thrown into the lake of fire with the unredeemed.
He began:
Mr. President,
Former president.
One of the most frustrating things to watch during your Presidency was the continued attacks on you from fake news outlets with no accountability to truth. I can’t imagine the frustration you and your family felt. Unfortunately, in our positions of public service, we have to accept the reality that often “truth” in the media is no longer based on facts but simply what one feels like saying.
It hurt Kapenga to watch that. It hurt him to imagine how it hurt Trump. It hurt him to think about Trump hurting.
So he’s just hoping Trump might find it in his heart to also feel sad for him if it turns out Trump has HOWEVER INADVERTENTLY done fake news to him. Surely it was just an oversight, my king!
This leads me to your recent press release stating that I am responsible for holding up a forensic audit of the Wisconsin elections. This could not be further from the truth.
Nevertheless, I need to correct your false claim against me. I never received a call from you or any of your sources asking about the election audit. If you had, I would have told you that long before your press release I called the auditor in charge of the election audit that is taking place in Wisconsin and requested a forensic component to the audit.
Please don’t hit me, please don’t stop loving me, please don’t hit me, please don’t stop loving me.
Also please do not be too mad that I accused you of saying a “false.” I didn’t mean it, Mister President Sir God Among Men Jesus Savior Superman, honest!
This leads me back to your press release. It is false, and I don’t appreciate it being done before calling me and finding out the truth.
Uh oh, Kapenga said “false” again! […]
This is what both of us have fought against. Being cut from similar cloth in our backgrounds, and knowing that reparation must always be of more value than the wrong done, I have two requests.
I feel I need to respond even though you will likely never hear of it, as the power of your pen to mine is like Thor’s hammer to a Bobby pin.
Dear Leader, your Thor’s Hammer is 10 feet long, a divine instrument of tumescent blessing! My bobby pin is two inches long, and just a quarter inch wide at the base. It would be an honor to have my bobby pin crushed by your Thor’s Hammer!
First, I ask that you issue a press release in similar fashion that corrects the information and also encourages people to support what I have requested in the audit.
Second, you owe me a round of golf at the club of your choice. I write this as I am about to board a plane due to a family medical emergency.
In addition to my Trump socks, I will pull up my Trump/Pence mask when I board the plane, as required by federal law. I figure, if the liberals are going to force me to wear a mask, I am going to make it as painful for them as possible.
Please use your big hammer to correct this wee misunderstanding! I will do whatever you want! I will play golf with you at one of your garbage clubs, in fact I am begging for the privilege! I will let you cheat and win, just like we are all trying to help you do in the 2020 election that happened last year! I will stick it to the libs by donning a mask that bears your holy name!
And, you know, if Thor’s Hammer needs any attention …
I will continue to do this regardless of whether or not I ever hear from you.
Even when you aren’t looking, I am bringing offerings to your altar and baptizing myself in your fount.
Thank you for doing great things as our President.
Respectfully,
Chris Kapenga
Wisconsin Senate President
Inside the Capitol Riot: An Exclusive Video Investigation.
The Times analyzed thousands of videos from the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol Building to understand how it happened — and why. Here are some of the key findings.
[…] Even now, however, Republican politicians and their allies in the media are still playing down the most brazen attack on a seat of power in modern American history. Some have sought to paint the assault as the work of mere tourists. Others, going further, have accused the F.B.I. of planning the attack in what they have described — wildly — as a false-flag operation.
The work of understanding Jan. 6 has been hard enough without this barrage of disinformation and, hoping to get to the bottom of the riot, The Times’s Visual Investigations team spent several months reviewing thousands of videos, many filmed by the rioters themselves and since deleted from social media. We filed motions to unseal police body-camera footage, scoured law enforcement radio communications, and synchronized and mapped the visual evidence.
What we have come up with is a 40-minute panoramic take on Jan. 6, the most complete visual depiction of the Capitol riot to date. In putting it together, we gained critical insights into the character and motivation of rioters by experiencing the events of the day often through their own words and video recordings. We found evidence of members of extremist groups inciting others to riot and assault police officers. And we learned how Donald J. Trump’s own words resonated with the mob in real time as they staged the attack.
[…] We pinpointed at least eight locations where rioters breached and entered the Capitol building — more than were previously known.
[…] In the Senate, proceedings to certify the election results were halted almost immediately when a building-wide lockdown was called after the first breach by rioters. But we found that it took much longer for the House of Representatives to do the same. This delay appeared to have contributed to a rioter’s death.
Instead of evacuating, members of the House sheltered in place and resumed their work even as rioters overran the building. Speaker Nancy Pelosi was rushed to safety, but Representative Jim McGovern took her place presiding over the session. He told us that Capitol building security staff had said it was safe to resume.
Eventually, the House session was halted and members began streaming out of a rear door guided by security personnel. Rioters had arrived at almost the same moment, just on the other side of a hallway door with glass panels. They became incensed at the sight of the evacuating lawmakers — a situation that could have been avoided if the lawmakers had left before the mob arrived.
Ashli Babbitt, a Trump supporter and follower of the QAnon conspiracy theory, tried to climb through one of the door’s broken windows toward the lawmakers. A plainclothes Capitol Police officer charged with protecting the House shot her once through the upper chest. The wound was fatal.
[…] the crowd did include members of groups who seemed eager for a confrontation, like well-organized militias and far-right groups including the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys. This proved to be a combustible mix. In the videos we analyzed, they can be seen with baseball bats and body armor, and coordinating with one another using radios. On several occasions, a calculated move by a more organized actor — for example, a Proud Boy identifying a weakness in the police line near a set of stairs — set off a surge by the mob.
Evidence collected by the F.B.I. suggests that the Proud Boys in particular were aware that they had inflamed the mob of ordinary people — and may have intended to do so in advance. Just before the assault, one Proud Boy leader wrote on a group chat on Telegram that he was hoping his men could incite the “normies” to “burn that city to ash today” and “smash some pigs to dust.” Then, after the riot, another Proud Boy leader wrote on Telegram: “This is NOT what I expected to happen. All from us showing up and starting some chants and getting the normies all riled up.”
[…] we found a clear feedback loop between President Trump and his supporters.
As Mr. Trump spoke near the White House, supporters who had already gathered at the Capitol building hoping to disrupt the certification responded. Hearing his message to “walk down to the Capitol,” they interpreted it as the president sending reinforcements. “There’s about a million people on their way now,” we heard a man in the crowd say, as Mr. Trump’s speech played from a loudspeaker.
[…] We found that once officers increased their numbers, armor and crowd-control weapons, clearing the rioters happened quickly and effectively.
[…] Law enforcement’s relatively quick success in clearing the Capitol building once reinforcements arrived shows how the rioters might have been stopped far earlier with a different level of preparation — possibly preventing fatalities, countless officer injuries, over $30 million in damages.
There was another difference between the Capitol riot and those connected to this summer’s racial justice protests: Very few people who broke into the Capitol were arrested at the scene. Most were allowed to leave the building, forcing the F.B.I. to track them down later and take them into custody — a process that is still continuing today.
In the Senate, proceedings to certify the election results were halted almost immediately when a building-wide lockdown was called after the first breach by rioters. But we found that it took much longer for the House of Representatives to do the same. This delay appeared to have contributed to a rioter’s death.
…
Eventually, the House session was halted and members began streaming out of a rear door guided by security personnel. Rioters had arrived at almost the same moment, just on the other side of a hallway door with glass panels. They became incensed at the sight of the evacuating lawmakers — a situation that could have been avoided if the lawmakers had left before the mob arrived.
Ashli Babbitt, a Trump supporter and follower of the QAnon conspiracy theory, tried to climb through one of the door’s broken windows toward the lawmakers. A plainclothes Capitol Police officer charged with protecting the House shot her once through the upper chest. The wound was fatal.
This seems borderline victim-blamey, like the rioters couldn’t control themselves at the provocative sight of legislators. They, including Babbitt, were adults with agency.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office is expected to charge the Trump Organization with tax-related crimes on Thursday, two representatives of the company told NBC News. One person said the charges are expected to be filed around 2 p.m. ET.
President Joe Biden is raising wages for federal firefighters to no less than $15 an hour, as the White House seeks to put a spotlight on the growing threats of wildfires and heat waves exacerbated by climate change.
It was a curious time for Sonny Perdue to close a real estate deal.
In February 2017, weeks after President Donald Trump selected him to be agriculture secretary, Perdue’s company bought a small grain plant in South Carolina from one of the biggest agricultural corporations in America.
Had anyone noticed, it would have prompted questions ahead of his confirmation […]
An examination of public records by The Washington Post has found that the agricultural company, Archer-Daniels-Midland (ADM), sold the land at a small fraction of its estimated value just as it stood to benefit from a friendly secretary of agriculture.
[…] Danny Brown, the former president of AGrowStar, confirmed negotiations began in late 2015. But Brown said ADM wanted $4 million for the plant — 16 times what Perdue’s company ultimately paid for it.
The timing of the sale just as Perdue was about to become the most powerful man in U.S. agriculture raises legal and ethics concerns, from the narrow question of whether the secretary followed federal financial disclosure requirements to whether the transaction could have been an attempt to influence an incoming government official, in violation of bribery statutes, ethics lawyers say.
“This stinks to high heaven,” said Julie O’Sullivan, a Georgetown University law professor and former federal prosecutor. “It deserves a prosecutor’s attention,” she added. “Only a prosecutor with the powers of the grand jury can find out, in fact, whether there was a quid pro quo that existed at the time of the deal.”
Public officials are barred from accepting anything of value if the benefit is given “with intent to influence.” ADM, which spent millions of dollars lobbying the U.S. government during the Trump presidency, certainly had many interests before the USDA during Perdue’s tenure.
[…] ADM sold the plant in Estill, S.C., to Perdue’s then-company, AGrowStar, for $250,000 — a fraction of what county and independent appraisers say it is worth. Six years earlier, ADM had paid more than $5.5 million for the same land, a figure that closely matches assessments by independent experts contacted by The Post, who analyzed the value based on state records and drone footage of the property.
Months after Perdue took over the U.S. Department of Agriculture, his family trust sold AGrowStar to a group of investors along with all of its real estate for an undisclosed amount. According to Brown, AGrowStar sold for about $12 million.
The real estate sales illustrate the limits of the financial disclosure rules intended to reveal potential conflicts of interest before confirmation. Officials are not required to detail their companies’ transactions or any business deals completed before their confirmations.
The sale of Perdue’s company was also obscured by complex financial moves that appear to have evaded at least the spirit of an agreement Perdue made with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, according to Walter Shaub, who led the agency at the time.
“This may be a matter for the FBI to investigate, frankly,” he said.
[…] While ADM asserts that the property was sold at fair market value, the commercial appraiser for Hampton County’s tax assessment office is skeptical.
“I would question the sale,” Robert Bates said. “It was an extremely low price to be paid for that facility.”
[…] The concrete grain elevator that looms over the property can store nearly 1 million bushels of soybeans. In 2018, the county appraised the elevator’s value at $530,000 — twice what AGrowStar had paid for the entire property — making it the most valuable building.
[…] The property features over 3 million bushels of grain storage. At The Post’s request, an independent appraiser valued the storage along with the equipment to move the grain at $4.6 million.
[…] the investors made a deal with ADM, a giant in the food processing market globally that had $64 billion in revenue last year and once billed itself as “supermarket to the world.”
The company has a history of manipulating markets. In the late ’90s, three ADM executives were convicted in a global price-fixing scheme and sentenced to prison terms. ADM was fined $100 million — the largest antitrust fine in U.S. history at the time. [Long-time grifters engaged in long-term scams.]
[…] Hankey had suspicions about ADM’s motives in Estill, and he turned out to be right. ADM shut down the processing business. Some 30 people lost their jobs in a town where more than a third of the population lives below the poverty line, according to an estimate by the U.S. Census Bureau.
“It had a huge impact on the town,” Hankey said.
The sale also affected the wider region. Because it processed so much soy, the plant was a regional buyer in the market. That was a lot of capacity for local growers, who could sell to Carolina Soya instead of shipping it to big traders like Cargill or ADM.
When the Estill plant closed, local soy prices fell. That meant ADM, one of the biggest players in soy processing, could purchase beans at a lower cost.
[…] Hankey, the former plant manager, when told of Brown’s account, said that ADM’s efforts to close the soy bean processing and to keep it closed was unfair to Estill, a town that badly needed the jobs and the revenue.
David Fahrenthold at WaPo is reporting that the grand jury indicted Weisselberg and the Trump Organization today. He said Weisselberg is expected to turn himself in tomorrow morning. Doesn’t think they’re done.
“TONIGHT FBI/DOJ notch near-record day of new arrests/charges in Jan. 6 Capitol riots, including a key deft. charged with opening East Capitol Rotunda doors from inside, 3rd cooperating Oath Keepers in 16 co-defendant conspiracy case and Boogaloo supporter”
The Supreme Court just finished gutting what was left of the Voting Rights Act.
Allen Weisselberg has reportedly turned himself in.
McCarthy has threatened any House Republicans who agree to serve on the January 6th select committee – potentially only Kinzinger and Cheney – with removal from their committees. (This is what he opposed happening to Marjorie Greene.)
…It is no surprise…that human rights watchdogs consistently rank Poland as being among the most homophobic countries in Europe. But this is not the complete picture. There are glimmers of hope in our ultra-conservative dystopia. Take a stroll around Warsaw today and you will see thousands of windows wrapped in rainbow flags, symbolising equality and freedom. Even the capital’s main landmark, the Palace of Culture, a gargantuan Soviet eyesore, regularly lights up in rainbow colours – a reminder that Warsaw still has an independent-minded mayor.
The more the rightwing government tightens its grip, the stronger becomes the voice of protest. A new generation of activists is emerging, building solidarity between the LGBTQ community and the women’s rights movement. State-run propaganda is being matched by counter-campaigns to raise awareness. And while dozens of small Polish towns have declared themselves “LGBT-free zones”, islands of tolerance are also appearing across the country, where progressive mayors and city councils create sanctuaries for oppressed minorities.
Despite very limited resources, the grassroots movement has already started to reap the fruits of its labour by effectively changing the attitudes of millions of Poles. We now have a young generation that is more progressive than ever, and increasingly immune to the aggressive messaging of the religious right. History shows that it is always the oppressed minorities who act as a catalyst for global change. There are parallels here with the 1969 Stonewall rebellion in New York, which prompted a powerful movement for LGBTQ political and legal equality.
Much like the Stonewall protesters more than half a century ago, equality campaigners in Poland are changing the fabric of our society….
As a result of the landmark Stonewall protests, homosexuality was eventually removed from the American Psychiatric Association’s list of mental disorders. The riot also sparked the first national march on Washington for lesbian and gay rights. Now is the time for Poland to secure rights for all its citizens. Its determined activists have waited long enough. In many of them you will recognise reflections of the great heroes of social rights movements around the world. These brave young Poles follow in their footsteps, refusing to give up. Read their stories, look up their names. They deserve your support.
Here’s a link to the July 1 Guardian coronavirus world liveblog.
From there:
New Covid cases in the World Health Organization’s 53-country European region rose 10% last week after falling for 10 straight weeks, the body has said, warning a new surge could come before autumn and calling for more monitoring of Euro 2020 matches.
While infection numbers continue to fall in many countries in the region, including in the EU, Katy Smallwood, WHO Europe’s senior emergencies manager, said some – such as Russia – were “recording their highest daily death rates of the pandemic”.
Driven by the more contagious delta variant combined with “increased mixing, travel, gatherings, and easing of social restrictions”, infections were rising while vaccination levels in the region were still not high enough, regional director Hans Kluge said.
Asked about whether the Euro championship was potentially acting as a “super-spreader” event, Kluge said: “I hope not … but this can’t be excluded.” Hundreds of cases have been detected among spectators, including Scots returning from London, Finns returning from St Petersburg and Delta variant infections in Copenhagen.
Smallwood warned that in a context of increasing infections, large mass gatherings in particular “can act as amplifiers in terms of transmission. It’s really important that local authorities implement a continuous public health risk assessment.”
Concerns were not limited to the matches and stadiums, Smallwood said, calling for increased monitoring of the mixing that happens around them:
How are people getting there? Are they traveling in large crowded buses? What’s happening after the games? Are they going into crowded bars and pubs?
Kluge said the WHO was “definitely concerned” by the possibility that the tournament would help spread the Delta variant. “We know it is reported by a total of 33 countries out of the 53, including host countries and some host cities”, he said.
Individuals and governments had to assess risks and act accordingly, he said: “People have to do it by safely taking care of individual behaviour, but also governments, by strengthening health systems, increasing testing, contact tracing and sequencing.”
Smallwood stressed the region now had a “window of opportunity” while many countries were still seeing falling infections. Governments should not lift social measures while infections were rising, she said, or if they did, public health measures such as sequencing should be reinforced.
Continue to invest in testing, in contact tracing, in case investigation like Scotland, which has just announced really rapid analyses of where people are getting infected. Take strategic, targeted, swift action. And vaccinate, vaccinate, vaccinate.
Kluge said the Delta variant was “already translating into increased hospitalisations and deaths. By August, the WHO’s European region will be ‘Delta dominant’ – but it will also not be fully vaccinated, and it will be mostly restriction-free.”
That meant the three conditions for “a new wave of excess hospitalisations and deaths” were all in place, he warned: “New variants, deficit in vaccine uptake, increased social mixing. There will be a new wave unless we remain disciplined.”
Kluge said that despite huge efforts by many countries, it was “unacceptable” that across the region 63% of people were still waiting for their first vaccine dose, while half of older people and 40% of health care workers remained unprotected.
Smallwood said people who decided to travel abroad should ask:
What’s the risk to myself? Am I fully vaccinated? Where am I going, what’s the epidemiology? Am I going to be in crowded areas or hiking up a mountain, where the risk is much lower?
German interior minister Horst Seehofer has described as “absolutely irresponsible” Uefa’s decision to hold the Euro 2020 semifinals and finals in the UK due to the prevalence of the Delta variant.
“I suspect that once again it’s all about commercial [interests],” Horst Seehofer told reporters in Berlin, according to the FT. “But commercial interests should not override the need to protect people from infections.”
The position taken by Uefa, European football’s governing body is, “absolutely irresponsible, because we are in a pandemic and precisely in countries like Great Britain we’re seeing a sharp increase in infections”, he added.
“[In such a situation], it is imperative to avoid contact and adhere to hygiene regulations if we are to stop infections [spreading].”
For the Euro 2020 matches held in Munich, he said authorities had enforced strict rules and only allowed 14,000 fans into a stadium that has a capacity of 80,000, the FT reports.
The CCP has recently defined “historical nihilism” as a grave offence. “Nihilism” is code for critical interpretations of the CCP’s own history. It’s fine to talk about the path to reform since 1978, but the Tiananmen Square demonstrations and subsequent killings of 1989 are off limits, the Cultural Revolution has been reduced to a limited mention in textbooks, and the famine caused by Mao’s Great Leap Forward is completely absent.
Xi’s China also pays tribute to the Leninist lessons of the past. The Rectification campaigns of the 1940s compelled aspiring party members to read texts by Mao to harden them against ideological deviance. Today, the term “rectify” has reappeared again as part of the CCP’s plans, although now it is carried out via an app (designed by Alibaba and available on the Apple Store) that tests entrants’ knowledge of Xi Jinping Thought.
Yet the chilling power politics of Leninism sits in contrast with another tradition that the CCP used to despise, but now embraces. Xi is keen to project the image of a benevolent leader who is fully in tune with the long tradition of Confucian ethics, at clear odds with his predecessor, Mao Zedong. Mao’s life was dedicated to destroying the values of the old China. During Mao’s rule, at the start of the Cultural Revolution, Confucius’s birthplace of Qufu was smashed to pieces by Red Guards. Yet the party’s hatred of Confucius began to fade just a few years after Mao’s death….
In the past 20 years, the Communist party’s praise for Confucian values has become entirely mainstream. Beijing’s walls are plastered with “socialist values”, but the terminology is distinctly traditional, stressing ideas such as “harmony” and “integrity”. The party has not developed an abstract interest in Confucianism. Rather, it sees the utility of thinking that stresses hierarchy, order and devotion to family at a time when China is prosperous but increasingly unequal. Attacking Confucius helped Mao achieve his revolution. Supporting Confucius helps Xi to prevent one.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is facing mounting pressure to resign following incendiary reports on allegedly corrupt deals to acquire Covid-19 vaccines and his mishandling of the pandemic response, Tom Phillips reports.
Tens of thousands of protesters are expected to return to the streets on Saturday to demand Bolsonaro’s removal from office – the third such mass demonstration in just over a month. On Wednesday a curious coalition of left- and rightwing opponents submitted a fresh petition for Bolsonaro’s impeachment after the Brazilian media published incendiary claims about supposedly dodgy dealings to acquire coronavirus vaccines….
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has announced Republican Rep. Liz Cheney will serve on the House Jan. 6 select committee to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
“We are very honored and proud she has agreed to serve on the committee,” Pelosi said Thursday.
At her press conference on Capitol Hill, Pelosi also announced House Homeland Security Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., will serve as the chair of the committee, which was widely expected.
The other Democrats tapped by Pelosi to serve on the committee are Reps. Zoe Lofgren, Adam Schiff, Pete Aguilar, Stephanie Murphy, Jamie Raskin and Elaine Luria….
Chris Hayes: “An abiding principle that unites the entire GOP from McConnell to Trump to Roberts: making things harder for voters and easier for donors.”
The editorial board of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is totally fed up with Sen. Ron Johnson’s anti-science approach to the pandemic. They described Ron Johnson as “the most irresponsible representative of Wisconsin citizens since the infamous Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy in the 1950s,” adding that Johnson “is not fit to be your senator.”
COVID-19 is still killing people in Wisconsin — nearly all of them people who have not been fully vaccinated, state health officials say.
And that’s why Ron Johnson’s news conference Monday was so disheartening.
The Republican senator highlighted five people who said they had serious side effects from the life-saving COVID-19 vaccines. Their stories were sad, to be sure, and we don’t doubt their veracity. But they represent only a tiny fraction of the people who have been vaccinated. [I do doubt them. You can’t trust anything Johnson says. Other sources would have to verify those stories.]
The best evidence from health experts shows that serious side effects from the vaccines are exceedingly rare —far, far rarer than suffering serious harm or death from COVID-19 itself. The vaccines are so safe and effective that we’re finally moving toward normalcy after 15 months of pandemic.
But instead of encouraging more people to get vaccinated so we can be rid of this plague once and for all, Johnson has chosen to use his taxpayer-financed megaphone to draw attention to a vanishingly small number of people who believe they suffered a serious side effect. And he has continued to cast doubts about science, research, masks and other public health measures while promoting “cures” with no evidence behind them.
He is the most irresponsible representative of Wisconsin citizens since the infamous Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy in the 1950s.
Johnson’s misleading medicine show Monday included charts showing thousands of deaths supposedly linked to the vaccines. But the data he relied on — reports to the federal government’s vaccine adverse event website that anyone can file — prove nothing. The federal government requires health care providers to report deaths after COVID-19 vaccination to the site even if it’s unclear whether the vaccine had anything to do with it.
[…] More than 1,500 people have died [from COVID] in Wisconsin since Jan. 1 alone.
With dangerous variants of the virus now circulating in Wisconsin, discouraging vaccination is reckless. […]
Ron Johnson has a long history of making misleading claims, including this one:
[…] During a meeting with the Journal Sentinel editorial board in 2010, Johnson claimed global warming was more likely caused by sunspots than human activity. Over the years, he continued to downplay climate change, claiming as recently as 2016 that the climate hadn’t warmed in “quite a few years,” which he said was “proven scientifically.”
In fact, PolitiFact judged that claim to be false, reporting “15 of the 16 warmest years on record have occurred since 2001, with the two highest years being 2014 and 2015.” […]
More at the link. Senator Ron Johnson is responsible for spewing misinformation that harms his constituents.
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority had already weakened the Voting Rights Act. Today, those justices made matters much worse.
It was eight years ago last month when the U.S. Supreme Court’s first gutted the Voting Rights Act. This morning, the high court’s conservative majority made matters worse.
The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld two election laws in the 2020 battleground state of Arizona that challengers said make it harder for minorities to vote…. Tuesday’s ruling said Arizona did not violate the Voting Rights Act when it passed a law in 2016 allowing only voters, their family members or their caregivers to collect and deliver a completed ballot. The court also upheld a longstanding state policy requiring election officials to throw out ballots accidentally cast in the wrong precincts.
[…] The ideological split was predicted long before the ruling was issued: Justices Alito, Roberts, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett were in the majority, while Justices Kagan, Breyer, and Sotomayor dissented. It was Samuel Alito, arguably the court’s most conservative justice, who wrote the ruling.
At the heart of the case was Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which prohibits voting restrictions that “results in a denial or abridgment of the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race.” Such abridgment occurs when, “based on the totality of circumstances,” racial minorities “have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice.”
In Shelby v. Holder, the Supreme Court targeted Section 5 of the VRA, dealing with pre-clearance of new election laws. After Brnovich v. DNC, Section 2 is weaker, too.
Elena Kagan was unrestrained in her criticisms of the majority’s decision: “What is tragic here is that the Court has (yet again) rewritten — in order to weaken — a statute that stands as a monument to America’s greatness, and protects against its basest impulses. What is tragic is that the Court has damaged a statute designed to bring about ‘the end of discrimination in voting.'”
She added that the problem of voting discrimination “has become worse” since her conservative colleagues gutted the law — largely because of the 2013 ruling. “Weaken the Voting Rights Act,” Kagan wrote, “and predictable consequences follow: yet a further generation of voter suppression laws.”
Lower courts had ruled that Arizona’s Republican-imposed voting restrictions were, in fact, unfair to minorities. The Republican-appointed justices didn’t care.
With this green light from the Supreme Court, new GOP bans on so-called “ballot harvesting” — collection of sealed mail ballots by third parties — seem inevitable.
Making matters just a bit worse, today’s ruling raises the very real prospect that even if Congress were to somehow approve legislation along the lines of the For the People Act, the high court’s conservative majority would likely reject it.
…Hundreds Feared Dead in Pacific Northwest in Unprecedented Heat Wave
Authorities in the Pacific Northwest fear hundreds of people have died from this week’s unprecedented heat wave. British Colombia has now reported about 300 more deaths than normal during the heat wave, which was fueled by the climate crisis. In Oregon, officials say at least 63 people have died from the heat. Dozens are also dead in Washington state. Meanwhile, residents of the Canadian village of Lytton in British Columbia have been forced to evacuate after a massive fire swept through the town, where the temperature recently soared to 121 degrees Fahrenheit. Lytton broke Canada’s all-time heat record on three consecutive days this week. The mayor of Lytton told the CBC, “The whole town is on fire.”
Indigenous Groups Blockade White House Urging End to Fossil Fuel Projects
Indigenous leaders and climate justice activists blockaded access to the White House Wednesday, calling on President Biden to invest more in climate justice initiatives in his infrastructure plans and to stop fossil fuel projects, including Enbridge’s Line 3 pipeline and the Mountain Valley Pipeline….
…
China Marks 100th Anniversary of Chinese Communist Party
Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke before 70,000 people in Tiananmen Square today to mark 100 years since the founding of the Chinese Communist Party. During his speech, Xi pledged to reunify Taiwan with China and warned against “bullying” by other countries.
President Xi Jinping: “The Chinese people have never bullied, oppressed or subjugated the people of other countries. We haven’t done that in the past, we are not doing it now, and we won’t do it in the future. … At the same time, the Chinese people will never allow any foreign force to bully, oppress or subjugate us. Anyone who dares try to do that will have their heads battered in front of the great wall of steel, forged with the flesh and blood of the over 1.4 billion Chinese people.”
…
182 More Unmarked Graves Found at First Nations Residential Schools in Canada
In Canada, another 182 unmarked graves have been found at a former boarding school for First Nations children in British Columbia. It is the third major discovery in recent weeks of graves at residential schools where Indigenous children were forcibly sent to rid them of their Native cultures and languages. Meanwhile, Pope Francis has finally agreed to meet with Indigenous survivors of Catholic-run residential schools in Canada. The pope has faced widespread criticism for refusing to apologize for the church’s role in what Canada’s National Truth and Reconciliation Commission described as “cultural genocide.”
…
State Department to Allow “X” Gender Marker on Passports
On the last day of Pride Month, the U.S. State Department announced it is working toward allowing gender nonconforming applicants to use the gender-neutral “X” marker on their passports. The State Department is also dropping a rule requiring trans applicants to provide medical certification in order to change the gender marker on their passports.
…
UNC-Chapel Hill Board Votes to Give Tenure to Nikole Hannah-Jones
The board of trustees at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has voted to grant tenure to incoming journalism professor Nikole Hannah-Jones, ending a weeks-long dispute. The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist is best known for her work at The New York Times, where she produced the 1619 Project, an interactive project that reexamines the legacy of slavery. The university initially denied her tenure after a prominent donor raised issues about her work on the 1619 Project.
Tucker Carlson is pushing a conspiracy theory about the NSA. Congressional Republicans are taking it seriously, which is probably unwise.
Fox News’ Tucker Carlson raised a few eyebrows this week by claiming, on the air, that the National Security Agency was “monitoring” his electronic communications, with plans to “leak them in an attempt to take this show off the air.”
The host offered no proof, but Carlson assured viewers he learned of the scheme by way of an unnamed “whistleblower.”
A day later, the NSA took the step of issuing a written statement, explaining, “Tucker Carlson has never been an intelligence target of the Agency and the NSA has never had any plans to try to take his program off the air. NSA has a foreign intelligence mission. We target foreign powers to generate insights on foreign activities that could harm the United States.”
The statement added, “With limited exceptions (e.g. an emergency), NSA may not target a US citizen without a court order that explicitly authorizes the targeting.”
This did not, however, resolve matters. The Fox News host continued to use his show to push the line, which was soon embraced by the likes of Alex Jones and others on the fringe. It wasn’t long before far-right voices on Capitol Hill, including Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), joined in.
Late yesterday, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) decided to take it seriously, too, calling for an investigation into the National Security Agency:
“[T]here is a public report that NSA read the emails of Fox News host Tucker Carlson. Although NSA publicly denied targeting Carlson, I have serious questions regarding this matter that must be answered. Given this disturbing trend, I’ve asked HPSCI Ranking Member Devin Nunes to investigate and find answers on behalf of the American people. The NSA cannot be used as a political instrument….”
Oh, where to begin.
First, there’s literally nothing in the public record, at least not yet, to suggest the NSA spied on Tucker Carlson. Obviously, a degree of skepticism toward the spy agency is understandable, but in a test of credibility pitting the NSA against the far-right Fox News host, it’s unwise to assume the latter deserves to prevail. After all, as NBC News reported yesterday, “The conservative host has a history of making false or exaggerated claims.”
Second […] It’s one thing for the lines of Gaetz and Jordan to jump into the fever swamp, but McCarthy, the would-be House Speaker, is supposed to be at least a little more responsible. He’s not.
Third, Devin Nunes — a curious choice to lead any examination given his controversial past — can’t use the House Intelligence Committee to launch some new probe, since the California Republican is in the minority. Evidently, McCarthy wants Nunes to oversee some kind of freelance operation, of which no good can come.
[…] there’s no reason to believe any of this will fade anytime soon. When you receive emails from your weird uncle who consumes conservative media all day, demanding to know why the Biden administration is spying on Tucker Carlson, at least you’ll know why.
A group of top agencies in the United States and United Kingdom on Thursday warned of an ongoing campaign by Russian government-backed hackers using “brute force” hacking techniques to target hundreds of organizations around the world.
The FBI, the National Security Agency (NSA), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the U.K.’s National Cyber Security Centre issued a joint advisory outlining the hacking campaign, ongoing since 2019 and carried out by the Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU).
[…] The hundreds of organizations targeted by the hacking efforts are primarily based in the United States and Europe. They include government and military agencies, such as the U.S. Department of Defense, along with political groups, think tanks, defense contractors, energy companies, logistics companies, media outlets, law firms and higher education institutions.
The hackers were able to access account credentials, such as email logins, for these groups and according to the advisory use them for “a variety of purposes, including initial access, persistence, privilege escalation, and defense evasion.”
[…] The same Russian hackers have been linked to hacking into Democratic National Committee’s networks ahead of the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and more recently to targeting pharmaceutical companies and COVID-19 vaccine researchers during the pandemic.
John Hultquist, the vice president of analysis at cybersecurity group FireEye’s Mandiant Threat Intelligence, said in a statement provided to The Hill Thursday that the Russian hacking group involved “conducts intelligence collection against these targets regularly as part of its remit as the cyber arm of a military intelligence agency.”
[…] The new advisory was issued on the heels of escalating cyberattacks on critical U.S. organizations either linked to the Russian government or to Russian-speaking cyber criminals likely being harbored by the nation, raising U.S.-Russian tensions.
[…] Russia remains a key threat actor in cyberspace, alongside other nations including China, Iran and North Korea.
“Despite our best efforts we are very unlikely to ever stop Moscow from spying,” Hultquist noted.
I am deeply disappointed in today’s decision by the United States Supreme Court that undercuts the Voting Rights Act, and upholds what Justice Kagan called ‘a significant race-based disparity in voting opportunities.
After all we have been through to deliver the promise of this Nation to all Americans, we should be fully enforcing voting rights laws, not weakening them. Yet this decision comes just over a week after Senate Republicans blocked even a debate – even consideration – of the For the People Act that would have protected the right to vote from action by Republican legislators in states across the country.
Our democracy depends on an election system built on integrity and independence. The attack we are seeing today makes clearer than ever that additional laws are needed to safeguard that beating heart of our democracy. We must also shore up our election security to address the threats of election subversion from abroad and at home.
Ta[k]e Pfizer or Moderna second dose after AstraZeneca for better protection, says German committee
Germany’s vaccine committee has recommended that everyone who received an AstraZeneca first dose switch to BioNTech-Pfizer or Moderna jabs for better protection against Covid.
Studies show that the immune response is “clearly superior” when an AstraZeneca shot is combined with a second mRNA vaccine, compared with double AstraZeneca jabs, said Stiko. The commission therefore recommended the mix “regardless of age” and with a minimum gap of four weeks between the two jabs, AFP reports.
The vaccines developed by BioNTech-Pfizer and Moderna are based on the same novel messenger RNA technology, which trains the body to reproduce spike proteins, similar to that found on the coronavirus. When exposed to the real virus later, the body recognises the spike proteins and is able to fight them off.
Viral vector vaccines like AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson use genetically-engineered version of a common-cold causing adenovirus as a “vector” to shuttle genetic instructions into human cells.
Chancellor Angela Merkel had received a Moderna second jab after getting an AstraZeneca injection for her first.
Given that January 6 was almost six months ago, and that Attorney General Merrick Garland announced last week that so far 500 Capitol rioters had been arrested and charged, you’d think the arrests would be petering out by now. But they’re still going pretty darn strong! Wednesday, the DOJ announced or unsealed the arrests of at least 13 Capitol rioters, the most of any day so far. The arrests included members of various extremist groups, including the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys, and the first arrest so far of an alleged Boogaloo Boy.
Let’s meet some of them, shall we? […]
George Tenney III from Anderson, South Carolina
George Tenney was not a member of any extremist groups, though not for lack of trying. According to a report, he asked “Where and how do I get involved or (be) a part of one of these patriot revolution groups? Like Proud Boys, or any of the other American Patriot militias?” on social media back in December.
[…] either way, he is alleged to have helped his fellow rioters through the East Rotunda Doors.
[…] “Tenney sought to help rioters enter the Capitol Building, confronting officers and Capitol employees while doing so,” the complaint said. “Video footage captured Tenney confronting federal officers as he sought to open the East Rotunda Doors from the inside to allow rioters to enter, despite police efforts to keep the doors shut and keep the rioters outside.”
[…] “As Tenney succeeded in pushing one of the two doors open, J.G., an employee of the House Sergeant at Arms, ran toward Tenney, pushed him aside, and tried to close the door Tenney had opened. …. Tenney then ran to the door again and made physical contact with J.G., appearing to grab him by the shoulder. Their faces close together, the two men (Tenney and the officer) had a heated conversation,” the complaint said.
Of course, now that Tenney has been arrested, he is claiming he actually told people to stop damaging property and helped police officers when they fell, because of how he is just a good guy like that.
Mark Grods from Mobile, Alabama
Grods, an Oath Keeper, pleaded guilty Wednesday to charges of conspiracy, obstruction of an official proceeding, and aiding and abetting. So far, 16 other Oath Keepers have been charged in the conspiracy and Grods is the second so far to flip.
[…] On Jan. 4, Grods traveled with others to Washington and brought firearms, and eventually provided them to another individual to store in a Virginia hotel.
Zvonimir Jurlina from Bethpage, NY […]
Jurlina, a YouTuber, was arrested yesterday on charges of “Destruction of Property in Special Maritime and Territorial Jurisdiction and Aiding and Abetting as well as Act of Physical Violence on Grounds,” after the FBI cleverly identified him through the YouTube videos he posted to an account on which he did not bother to obscure his identity or his home phone number.
Reportedly, Jurlina “kicked or stomped on media equipment, assisted in attempting to light the gear on fire and “incited violent acts” against members of the media. […]
Gabriel Brown from Bayville, New York […]
Another YouTuber! Not only did Brown make no effort to obscure his identity, but he literally wrote his name on camera, and then destroyed media equipment and uploaded it to his channel with the title “media equipment destruction gabriel brown gb0083.” In that video, he justified this by claiming it was punishment for the media not doing their jobs. […]
According to the affidavit, he said in another video:
BROWN: You stole the Senate from us, you stole the House from us, and now you think you’re going to steal the presidency from us? Let me tell you something — you want to take peaceful revolution away from us? Well you better prepare for fucking violent revolution. I don’t want violence. I believe in peaceful resolve. But you’re making it goddamn impossible for us.
Truly, he was very empowered. And now he’s been arrested.
Steven Thurlow from St. Clair Shores, Michigan […]
Thurlow is our Boogaloo Boy. Our 50-year-old Boogaloo Boy. And Army veteran. He was outed as a Capitol rioter after posting the above photo to social media with the caption “Ahh nothing like a new pair of 511’s and fresh set of level IV SAPI’s in the plate carrier to go ‘peacefully protest’ with.” […]
Michael Perkins from Plant City, Florida […]
Perkins is accused of beating an officer with a flagpole, a crime for which Assistant US Attorney Patrick Scruggs suggests he will probably end up serving two to three years in prison.
Thomas Robertson from Rocky Mount, Virginia […][
Robertson, a former police officer, had already been arrested, but had been released on his own recognizance. He was re-arrested yesterday for violating his release conditions “by possessing a loaded M4 rifle and a partially-assembled pipe bomb at his home, and by purchasing an arsenal of 34 firearms online and transporting them in interstate commerce while under felony indictment,” […]
Like others, Robertson bragged of his actions online, writing, “CNN and the Left are just mad because we actually attacked the government who is the problem and not some random small business … The right IN ONE DAY took the f***** U.S. Capitol. Keep poking us.” On another person’s post, he commented, “[…] The picture of Senators cowering on the floor with genuine fear on their faces is the most American thing I have seen in my life. Once….for real….you people ACTUALLY realized who you work for.”
[…] trying to overthrow the government and install Donald Trump as Dictator For Life doesn’t work either. If pipe bombs were his next step, it’s probably best that he was prevented from taking it.
Again, this guy was a cop and passed whatever psychological tests they give people who want to become cops.
Chase Kevin Allen from Seekonk, Massachusetts […]
Rather than just fessing up, Allen tried to claim he was only there as a documentary filmmaker, telling WPRI “I just went there to document, and one thing led to another, and the next thing you know, the FBI’s at my door.” This story, however, fell apart when some of the footage of Allen showed him stomping on equipment belonging to the actual media.
In addition to these men, there were several other arrests, including two more from Florida — Olivia Pollock, and Joshua Doolin of Lakeland — and another from Massachusetts — Noah Bacon of Somerville, whose father is super pissed and told reporters that he is “a proud combat Vet and I do not see January 6th as anything patriotic. I think it’s embarrassing.” […]
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is threading a weird needle.
According to a new report in the Washington Examiner, the Republican governor’s office has reached out to former President Trump’s team of advisers, attempting to discourage Trump from holding a rally in the state this weekend. It’s a matter of optics — the rally is being held about 200 miles from Miami Beach, where authorities have been working around the clock to pull bodies out of the rubble following the collapse of a seaside condo. After the bodies of two young children were pulled from the wreckage yesterday, the death toll rose to 18, with almost 150 still missing. […]
Trump’s team is reportedly ignoring the governor’s request.
According to the Washington Examiner, DeSantis’ team has made a “direct plea” to Trumpworld to cancel the event in Sarasota on Saturday, with one Florida Republican telling the Examiner that Trump and his advisers need to “read the room.” A source close to Trump told the Examine […]: “Nobody wants to cancel.” […]
“Thursday just in: +1.63M doses reported administered over yesterday’s total, including 665K newly vaccinated. Two-thirds of adults with at least one dose! Congrats to Delaware, Minnesota and Puerto Rico for reaching the 70% of adults with at least one dose milestone! #WeCanDoThis”
The Delta variant of coronavirus is driving the pandemic forward in Africa at record speeds, the World Health Organization (WHO).
Infection numbers have increased in Africa for six weeks running, rising by a quarter week-on-week to almost 202,000 in the week that ended Sunday, it said. The continent’s weekly record currently stands at 224,000 new cases, AFP reports. Deaths rose by 15 percent across 38 African countries to nearly 3,000 in the same period. “The speed and scale of Africa’s third wave is like nothing we’ve seen before,” Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO’s regional director for Africa, said.
The White House said it would send out special teams to hot spots around the US to combat the highly contagious Delta coronavirus variant, and urgently called on Americans who have not been vaccinated to get jabs.
White House COVID-19 senior adviser Jeffrey Zients told reporters the “surge response” teams would be ready to speed additional testing supplies and therapeutics to communities that were experiencing increases in cases, Reuters reports. The seven-day-average number of cases in the US has risen 10% since last week, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director (CDC) Rochelle Walensky said on Tuesday.
A rash of cases of a rare “black fungus” infection affecting thousands of critically ill Covid patients in India caused alarm last month. Now scientists are warning that other dangerous or even deadly fungal infections have spawned in critically ill coronavirus patients globally, including in the UK.
Fungi are ubiquitous – in soil, water, air, faeces and human skin. Usually, people’s elaborate, adaptive immune systems are enough of a repellent but when that shield is weakened by disease, congenital conditions or age, they are far more vulnerable to microscopic assailants.
When Covid-19 emerged, doctors found that the best tools in their arsenal to fight the virus were steroids, which happen to be immunosuppressants. Wary of secondary bacterial infections in intensive care units, doctors often gave coronavirus patients broad-spectrum antibiotics as a precaution.
But the combination of lungs battered by Covid, impaired immune systems, and both good and bad bacteria wiped out by antibiotics left critically ill patients exposed to moulds and spores.
“It’s an unfortunate perfect storm for these organisms, and we’re seeing it,” said Dr Tom Chiller, the chief of the Mycotic Diseases Branch at the US-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Even before the pandemic, rates of the rare and lethal “black fungus” mucormycosis infection in India were estimated to be about 70 times higher than in the rest of the world. With Covid, a fresh epidemic germinated, driven in part by liberal steroid use in hospitals and a high proportion of susceptible patients with uncontrolled diabetes.
Scientists now say concerning reports of other fungal infections, caused by pathogens including Aspergillus and Candida auris, have emerged in hospitalised Covid patients. In particular, the common fungal infection aspergillosis, often seen in combination with the flu, has been observed in critically ill Covid patients globally, from the US to the UK, France, Pakistan and India.
…
According to Chiller, roughly half of those infected with mucormycosis tend to die – and aspergillosis can be just as deadly, especially in intensive care patients with Covid. “The important thing is to think fungus,” he said. “If you don’t think it, you’re not going to diagnose it, you’re not going to treat it, you’re not going to save lives.”
Trump Organization lawyers spent days suggesting the criminal charges would be trivial and underwhelming. The truth is far more damaging.
[…] We knew there was a New York grand jury maintaining an aggressive pace. We knew the grand jury had issued indictments. We knew the company’s chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, appeared to be in real trouble.
What we didn’t know, however, was the biggest piece of the puzzle: what specific crimes do prosecutors believe the former president’s business committed?
In recent days, the Trump Organization’s lawyers have quietly suggested to reporters that the case is small potatoes — so trivial that they’re amazed New York prosecutors would even bother with such piddly offenses.
But this afternoon, the public finally got to see the case against the business and its CFO, and those who expected the charges to be trivial were quite wrong. The New York Times reported:
The Trump Organization, the real estate business that catapulted Donald J. Trump to tabloid fame, television riches and ultimately the White House, was charged Thursday with fraud and tax crimes in connection with what prosecutors said was a 15-year-long scheme to compensate a top executive off the books. The Manhattan district attorney’s office, which has been conducting the investigation, also accused the executive, Allen H. Weisselberg, Mr. Trump’s long-serving and trusted chief financial officer, of avoiding taxes on $1.7 million in income. He faced grand larceny, tax fraud and other charges.
The general counsel for the Manhattan district attorney characterized the allegations as “a sweeping and audacious illegal payments scheme” orchestrated by the former president’s business.
Daniel Shaviro, a professor of tax law at NYU, responded, “I’ve read the Weisselberg indictment. If we take its assertions as true, this is no ticky-tack, or foot fault, or debatable case of tax fraud. […]”
The assessment was more than fair: at issue are first-degree felonies, not misdemeanors.
Both the company and Weisselberg pleaded not guilty. The former president, who has not been indicted in this case — at least not yet — issued a statement describing the criminal allegations as a “political Witch Hunt” that is “dividing our Country like never before!”
Nevertheless, not only are the charges serious, they may be the start of other criminal allegations. The Wall Street Journal reported, “The charges … could be the first in a series of charges in the future […]”
New York Attorney General Letitia James (D), whose office was directly involved in the indictment, added in a written statement that the investigation is ongoing, “and we will follow the facts and the law wherever they may lead.”
Today’s indictment also pointedly refers to Weisselberg as “one of the largest individual beneficiaries” of the Trump Organization’s alleged tax scheme, leaving unanswered the question of how many other individuals were also large beneficiaries.
“the subtext of this Ashli Babbitt conspiracy theory is that the officer was somehow in the wrong for shooting someone who was trying to break through the last barricade preventing the Trump mob of which she was a part from attacking members of Congress”
The Trump gang are now trying to get the guy who shot Babbitt identified and endangered. I’ve always thought Trump’s (and Rand Paul’s and others’) efforts to out the whistleblower and Trump’s threats to his life were among the worst things they did, and they were never held accountable for it. Indeed, Republicans ignored, excused, or joined in with it. I’m not at all surprised they’re now menacing this man who was protecting Congresspeople.
Wonkette: “ExxonMobil Lobbyist Pretty Proud Of How Much He Messed Up Biden’s Climate Legislation”
A lobbyist for oil giant ExxonMobil was recorded bragging about what a fantastic job the company had done in blocking climate legislation proposed by the Biden administration. Keith McCoy, a senior lobbyist for ExxonMobil, thought he was talking on a video call with corporate headhunters who wanted to hire him, but in reality, the call came from activists with Greenpeace UK’s investigative outfit, “Unearthed.” The UK’s Channel 4 News broke the story yesterday, and Exxon is very very unhappy about the whole thing.
Among other things, McCoy touted ExxonMobil’s success in lobbying to sharply pare back climate provisions in the bipartisan infrastructure bill supported by Joe Biden, acknowledged the company has boosted climate denial groups, and said the company’s “support” for a carbon tax is just a show to pretend it supports climate action, because there’s little chance such a tax would pass anyway. He also said ExxonMobil tries to avoid having its CEO or other executives appear before Congress, preferring to leave it to industry groups like the American Petroleum Institute to be the “whipping boys” for climate.
McCoy identified 11 “moderate” members of the US Senate he said were “crucial” to ExxonMobil’s climate inaction agenda, and wouldn’t you know it, all but two of them have taken money from the company’s PAC. Of the group, McCoy said the “kingmaker” was Senator Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia), one of the leaders of the effort to create a small bipartisan infrastructure deal for Biden to sign. The Biden administration insists that even though the bipartisan plan doesn’t include many climate measures from his American Jobs Plan, those measures will be included in a separate bill that would be passed by Democrats only, using the budget reconciliation process to avoid a filibuster.
Here’s Channel 4’s video teasing a longer version of the story that aired last night. [video available at the link]
McCoy handily demolished years of ExxonMobil ads claiming it’s super-concerned about climate, explaining that the company has also relied on third-party organizations to fight any meaningful restrictions on carbon emissions, and bragging that he had lobbied senators to slash climate provisions from Biden’s American Jobs Plan.
ExxonMobil was quick to denounce the video as mean, underhanded propaganda from Greenpeace, which it said has “waged a multi-decade campaign against our company and industry,” insisting the company supports climate science and scrupulously follows all federal lobbying laws. Not that Greenpeace UK said ExxonMobil had broken the law, just that it was a sleazy dirty planet killer, which is, weirdly, perfectly legal.
McCoy said that sure, ExxonMobil had fought hard against climate legislation, but that was fine, because it’s only business:
McCOY: Did we aggressively fight against some of the science? Yes. Did we hide our science? Absolutely not. Did we join some of these shadow groups to work against some of the early efforts? Yes, that’s true. But there’s nothing, there’s nothing illegal about that.
You know, we were looking out for our investments. We were looking out for our […] shareholders.
Some of that is hardly a secret. A 2015 investigation by InsideClimate News found that scientists working for Exxon, back before it merged with Mobil, had determined as early as 1977 that climate change was being caused by burning fossil fuels, and that the company had, following the Big Tobacco model, funded junk science to promote doubt and delay efforts to limit carbon emissions.
McCoy also discussed how he had lobbied the “moderate” senators to strip down the Biden proposal so it only dealt with “real” infrastructure, conveniently removing items that might reduce ExxonMobil’s profits:
McCOY: That’s a completely different conversation when you start to stick to roads and bridges. And instead of a $2 trillion bill, it’s an $800 billion dollar bill. If you lower that threshold, you stick to highways and bridges then a lot of the negative stuff starts to come out.
Why would you put in something on emissions reductions on climate change to oil refineries in a highway bill? So, people say “yeah, that doesn’t make any sense,” […]
In its statement, ExxonMobil contended McCoy had it all wrong, and that the company’s “lobbying efforts are related to a tax burden that could disadvantage US businesses.”
[…] While he was at it, McCoy seemed awfully pleased with the brilliant idea of his company lobbying in favor of a carbon tax, which allowed ExxonMobil to look like it’s doing something on climate, at least for public consumption:
McCOY: I will tell you there is not an appetite for a carbon tax. It is a non-starter. Nobody is going to propose a tax on all Americans. And the cynical side of me says yeah we kind of know that. But it gives us a talking point. We can say well what is ExxonMobil for? Well we’re for a carbon tax.
Luckily for ExxonMobil, he said, passing anything would “take political courage, political will” on the part of Congress, and “that just doesn’t exist in politics. It just doesn’t.”
And then there are those 11 senators McCoy said are crucial to getting what ExxonMobil wants. They include six Democrats and five Republicans:
John Barrasso (R-Wyoming)
Shelley Moore Capito (R-West Virginia)
John Cornyn (R-Texas)
Steve Daines (R-Montana)
Marco Rubio (R-Florida)
Chris Coons (D-Delaware)
Maggie Hassan (D-New Hampshire)
Mark Kelly (D-Arizona)
Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia)
Kyrsten Sinema (D-Arizona)
Jon Tester (D-Montana)
[…] all but Hassan and Kelly had received campaign contributions from ExxonMobil; Manchin, the supposed “kingmaker,” has “received at least $12,500 from the ExxonMobil Political Action Committee” since the 2011-12 election cycle. For perspective, the oil and gas bidness isn’t among the top five industries funding Manchin’s campaigns. It is, however, in eighth place, with a total of just over $200K in contributions from 2015 to 2020, so it’s also not peanuts.
[…] we’re sure it was especially shocking that McCoy got caught saying all that on video, for sure. This certainly isn’t likely to go over well with the ExxonMobil shareholders who elected three members of a climate activist investor group, Engine No. 1, to ExxonMobil’s board last month.
Moral of the story: Oil companies aren’t going to change without being forced to change, both through investor pressure and, more importantly, through the law. Get on the phone to your representatives and senators and let them know the reconciliation bill absolutely has to include the climate provisions from the American Jobs Act.
Full indictment at this link. Looks strong to me, especially since they maintained a set of books spelling out that the money was compensation and also removed Weisselberg’s name from and destroyed inculpatory business records.
There is currently no political path for launching impeachment proceedings against Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, the head of the lower house said on Thursday, Reuters reports.
The comments by Arthur Lira, who has the power to decide whether to accept the impeachment proceedings, will come as a major relief to Bolsonaro.
He is feeling the heat for overseeing the world’s second-deadliest coronavirus pandemic, a high-profile Senate probe into his handling of the outbreak and a scandal over alleged graft in vaccine purchases.
Lira said impeachment required political conditions “which are not present at this moment, neither outside nor inside Congress.”
The Senate probe has unearthed alleged corruption, with health ministry insiders and pro-Bolsonaro lawmakers allegedly seeking to fast-track and overpay for an Indian vaccine developed by Bharat Biotech.
Federal prosecutors and the federal police have launched a criminal probe into the deal.
The fugitive deputy leader of Greek neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn has been detained in Athens after months of evading arrest, media reports say.
Christos Pappas had been wanted by police since October, when the entire leadership of Golden Dawn was convicted of running a criminal organisation.
Pappas was sentenced to 13 years in prison, but refused to hand himself in.
He is known for having an obsession with Nazism and was considered a leading ideologue of Golden Dawn.
A police source told AFP news agency Pappas was eventually caught at a home in the Athens district of Zografou.
A police statement, which did not mention Pappas by name, said a 59-year-old man had been arrested by counter-terrorism officers and was set to be brought before the prosecutor on Friday.
A 52-year-old woman who had allegedly been hiding him was also arrested, it said.
Pappas’s lawyer has not yet commented. In October, he said his client would not surrender as he expected his conviction to be quashed on appeal.
Pappas was a founding member of Golden Dawn and close friend of its leader. He has been photographed under a Nazi flag and filmed teaching children to do the Hitler salute….
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trollssays
Rachel Maddow was speculating on an unnamed executive who received suspicious compensation as a consultant to avoid taxes: Ivanka, Video if I can find it.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trollssays
The Ivanka claims are supported by a previous NYT article, so it’s old news.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trollssays
Link to old article reporting the Ivanka accusation.
Labour has narrowly won the Batley and Spen byelection, holding on to the West Yorkshire seat after a hotly contested campaign.
Labour won 13,296 votes with the Conservatives recording 12,973, according to official results. Kim Leadbeater defeated Ryan Stephenson, the Tory candidate, by 323 votes. George Galloway, representing the Workers party of Britain, came third with 8,264 votes.
The result, which Labour had feared would not go its way, was declared at about 5.25am on Friday after two “bundle checks” – not a full recount, but where the piles of votes are flicked through for irregularities. The result eases the pressure on Labour’s leader, Keir Starmer, after a humiliating defeat in Hartlepool in May.
On Friday morning, Starmer said he welcomed the “fantastic result for the brilliant and brave” Leadbeater.
The tense campaign had been mired in accusations of dirty tricks and intimidatory tactics. It came five years after the MP Jo Cox, Leadbeater’s older sister, was murdered in the constituency by a far-right terrorist.
…
Labour activists said they were pelted with eggs and kicked in the head on the campaign trail at the weekend. West Yorkshire police said an 18-year-old man from Batley was arrested on suspicion of assault in connection with an attack on canvassers.
…
Brendan Cox, the widower of Jo Cox, tweeted: “We are all incredibly proud of #kimleadbeater today and Jo would have been too. While the result between the two main parties was close the extremists & haters were left trailing. The people of Batley & Spen have voted for decency and positivity once again.”
In a pointed statement released shortly after polls closed at 10pm on Thursday, Leadbeater said the “acts of intimidation and violence by some who have come with the sole aim of sowing division have been deeply upsetting to witness”.
There were 16 candidates on the ballot, including several far-right candidates.
George Galloway, who came third in the contest, said he would apply to have the result set aside by the courts.
The UK government is among major aid donors to have funded clinics in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania that offer so-called “conversion therapies”, which pressurise gay people to “quit” same-sex attraction, an investigation has found.
In a six-month undercover investigation of the centres, reporters from global news website openDemocracy were told being gay is “evil”, “for whites” and a mental health problem. Among them were facilities funded by some of the world’s biggest aid donors, including USAid and the British government’s fund, UK Aid, run by organisations such as UK-based MSI Reproductive Choices (formerly Marie Stopes International) and Swiss-based Global Fund.
Yvee Oduor from the Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya called for aid donors to redirect their funding, adding that “we already have clinics and health centres run by LGBTQI+ people all over the country. Why not fund these community initiatives?”
…
The British government pledged to introduce a ban on conversion therapy in 2018, but in May announced that a public consultation will be held before any measures are taken. Amnesty International this week urged the government to urgently introduce a “blanket ban” on conversion therapy, fearing a consultation could lead to opt-outs for religious groups.
The openDemocracy reporters said they visited facilities that had been flagged in previous research with more than 50 LGBTQ+ people in east Africa. Conversion therapy activities were found in 12 out of the 15 clinics they visited….
…
Under laws from colonial times, gay sex is punishable by life imprisonment in Uganda. The Sexual Offences Bill 2019, which is awaiting presidential assent, reduces the sentence to 10 years – but has broadened the criminalisation of homosexuality to include the criminalisation of women who have sex with women.
In a statement in May, Human Rights Watch Africa director Mausi Segun called on President Museveni to reject the bill, which she argues “does not do enough for survivors, conflates consensual sexual acts with violence, and offers tools to persecute LGBT people and sex workers in Uganda”….
Here’s a link to the July 2 Guardian coronavirus world liveblog.
From there:
Russia today said it will not impose a new lockdown – despite four days of record coronavirus deaths (see 05:07).
The government has refused to impose a full lockdown since the first wave last year, reports AFP, and is hosting mass events including Euro 2020 football fixtures (including the quarter final match between Spain and Switzerland tonight).
President Vladimir Putin has urged Russians to get vaccinated, but the Kremlin today said “nobody wants any lockdowns” and said it is “not up for debate”….
1 in 260 in England had Covid in the last week, says ONS
The UK’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) has estimated that 1 in 260 people in England had Covid-19 in the last week, rates similar to those last seen in February.
It marks a steep rise on the previous week, when the figure was 1 in 440.
Across the rest of the UK, the ONS estimated figures are: 1 in 450 in Wales, 1 in 670 in Northern Ireland and 1 in 150 in Scotland.
Infections have increased across most regions of England, the ONS said, with the highest rates in the North East and the North West.
But hospital admissions in England remained similar to the previous week:…
Sarah Crofts, an ONS spokesperson, said although infection rates are similar to what they were in February, vaccinations will “hopefully mean fewer people will have severe symptoms.”
Man charged with common assault after England’s chief medical officer accosted in London
A man has been charged with common assault after England’s chief medical officer, Prof Chris Whitty, was accosted in a central London park, PA reports.
Lewis Hughes, 23, of Romford, east London, was charged on Thursday evening and would appear at Westminster magistrates court on Friday 30 July, the Metropolitan police said.
The African Union’s head of vaccine procurement has said “not a single” Covid jab has so far left the EU for Africa, hitting out at the bloc for hoarding supply.
…Following repeated attempts – some of them successful – by protesters and indigenous communities to knock down statues of Spanish conquistadors, among other historical figures, the government of President Iván Duque has removed some and announced a review into other monuments that have stood in the country since 1920. “Our priority is to protect our patrimony. In view of potential incidents, we have decided to move them on a temporary basis to the La Sabana [railway] station,” said Culture Minister Angélica Mayolo. Recently appointed to the post, Mayolo has performed a change of tack on the government’s position concerning monuments. Her two predecessors in the ministry had described the pulling down of statues as vandalism. “The country must respect different viewpoints and listen to indigenous communities who today feel discriminated against by symbols of national heritage, but without condoning violence and destruction,” Mayolo said on announcing the decision of the National Heritage Council to review the presence of several monuments. However, it is not yet clear who will be involved in the dialogue or which are the statues in question.
…
Following the toppling of the Belalcázar statue, and foreseeing what would happen to similar monuments, the Bogotá District Institute of Cultural Heritage (IDPC) opened up a series of talks over the monuments and what they represent with around 170 people participating. One of the conclusions drawn from the talks is that there is consensus “even among those who have a traditional point of view that it is necessary to broaden the scope of the patrimonial narrative,” and that there should be “no closed-door debates or ones that involve only experts.” “What we have seen during the protests is that there is an interpellation of public space,” explained IDPC director Patrick Morales.
The Misak community has been at the forefront of the tumbling of statues during the protests….
Professor Amada Carolina Pérez of the Social Sciences faculty at the Pontifical Xavierian University explained that the protests are not just a questioning of historical figures, “but of colonialism as a matrix of thought and esthetics.” Pérez agreed with Morales that “this is a telluric movement that is shaking up pubic [uh…sic] space” and one that is linked to the graffiti, murals and monuments to resistance that have sprung up during the two months of protests. “This protest has stirred up some very significant things, questioning the way memory has been created in the public space and showing how it could take on a new significance,” Pérez said.
The question now is: what to do with the fallen statues? Where should they be housed? What end should they be given? These are the questions that the roundtables between the authorities and the communities will seek to answer….
The world is in a “very dangerous period” of the pandemic and “no country is out of the woods yet”, warned Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the World Health Organisation (WHO) director-general. Delta has been detected in at least 98 countries and is “spreading quickly”.
He said there are some vaccinations being shared, but “only a trickle”. He also urged vaccine makers to share information.
On the Tokyo Olympics, Maria Van Kerkhove, of the WHO, said “we are learning from Euro 2020” that if the coronavirus is present and precautions are not taken, it will spread. “We urge caution.. We urge everybody to take a risk-based approach”
Van Kerkhove said the WHO is tracking the Lambda variant and that it is a “variant of interest at a global level”.
New reporting says Trump is still “obsessed” with the idea that he can be “reinstated” to the presidency. That’s bonkers, but it’s not irrelevant.
Yesterday wasn’t a great day for Donald Trump. It was a day in which New York prosecutors brought a multi-count criminal indictment against the former president’s business, alleging that the Trump Organization orchestrated a 15-year-long tax-fraud scheme.
But Politico reported that the criminal allegations against his core business does not have Trump’s sole attention. On the contrary, the report, quoting an unnamed adviser to the Republican, added that the former president’s ongoing “obsession” is with “the idea that he could still prove to be the winner of the 2020 election.”
According to this adviser, Trump is holding out hope that if the Arizona “audit”/fishing expedition ends up in his favor, a few other states will follow suit, triggering some sort of legal process that would make him president. He’s even questioned the merits of the Constitution, if it can’t be used to investigate election fraud.
[snipped examples of Trump voicing his obsession]
In May, by way of his now-defunct blog, he celebrated a poll showing most Republican voters “believe Donald Trump is the true president,” and last month, the New York Times’ Maggie Haberman noted that Trump “has been telling a number of people he’s in contact with that he expects he will get reinstated” to the presidency by August.
She’s not alone. National Review’s Charles C. W. Cooke, a prominent conservative writer, published this piece in early June:
…Haberman’s reporting was correct. I can attest, from speaking to an array of different sources, that Donald Trump does indeed believe quite genuinely that he — along with former senators David Perdue and Martha McSally — will be “reinstated” to office this summer after “audits” of the 2020 elections in Arizona, Georgia, and a handful of other states have been completed. I can attest, too, that Trump is trying hard to recruit journalists, politicians, and other influential figures to promulgate this belief — not as a fundraising tool or an infantile bit of trolling or a trial balloon, but as a fact.
[snipped more examples of Trump’s obsession]
And as of yesterday, according to new reporting, he’s still clinging to the fantasy.
I continue to believe this matters, not because Trump might somehow be “reinstated” — that’s obviously insane — but because the United States only has two major parties, and right now, one of them is becoming a sycophantic personality cult toward a man who is, as National Review’s Cooke put it, actively engaged in “a rejection of reality, a rejection of law, and, ultimately, a rejection of the entire system of American government.”
Trump is deliberately undermining our democracy; few in his party are willing to tell him this is dangerously bonkers; his party is aggressively pursuing anti-voting and anti-election measures in service of the lies and delusions; and as Rachel recently explained on the show, it’s an open question as to what the former president’s allies, inside government and out, will be expected to do as Trump maintains the idea that he’s the real president, reality be damned.
The Justice Department has joined progressive activists, state legislators, and three Supreme Court justices in pushing Congress to protect voting rights.
In the not-too-distant past, champions of voting rights would look to the courts as a refuge when policymakers failed them. As Republican-appointed jurists close that door — the Supreme Court’s far-right majority further gutted the Voting Rights Act yesterday — guardians of the franchise are noticeably short on options.
As The Atlantic’s Ron Brownstein noted, the high court’s small progressive minority has effectively declared, “We’ve done all we can here.” If Americans’ voting rights are to be shielded from their attackers, at what Justice Elena Kagan described as “a perilous moment for the Nation’s commitment to equal citizenship,” the work will fall to others.
[…] the Justice Department issued a written statement in response to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Brnovich v. DNC:
“The Attorney General has made clear, ‘the Department of Justice will never stop working to protect the democracy to which all Americans are entitled.’ The department remains strongly committed to challenging discriminatory election laws and will continue to use every legal tool available to protect all qualified Americans seeking to participate in the electoral process. The department urges Congress to enact additional legislation to provide more effective protection for every American’s right to vote.”
[…] the message to Congress — or more to the point, Senate Democrats — is hardly subtle. Progressive activists are begging for voting rights protections. Democratic state legislators are pleading with federal lawmakers to protect voting rights. Progressive justices on the Supreme Court are throwing up their arms in despair, feeling powerless to protect voting rights.
And now the Justice Department is also urging Congress to step up to shield the franchise.
The question then becomes what, if anything, Senate Democrats are prepared to do about it. Last week, the Senate tried to move forward with a debate on a revised version of the For the People Act, but the Republican minority used a filibuster to derail the discussion. All 50 members of the Senate Democratic conference were united on this — no small feat, to be sure — but GOP senators wouldn’t allow a debate, a vote, or a voting rights breakthrough. [snipped discussion about eliminating or reforming the filibuster rules]
[…] given the severity of the threats, and the Justice Department pushing Congress to do the right thing, the burden on protecting voting rights is falling on 50 individuals.
Myanmar’s junta is deploying Russian arms to suppress anti-coup protest groups and more Moscow support is on the way….
On the day before the February 1 coup, a group of Russian and Myanmar military officers had a party in Yangon where the vodka reportedly flowed freely. Among other things, they were likely toasting the coup that was set to be launched the next day.
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) is using private money to deploy the National Guard to the border. The pushback is intensifying.
It didn’t come as too big of a surprise this week when South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) announced that she was deploying 50 National Guard troops to Texas in order to “help” at the U.S./Mexico border. The Republican governor is, after all, eager to impress her party’s base ahead of a likely bid for national office, so she obviously sees value in performative stunts like these.
But there was an unusual dimension to Noem’s announcement: South Dakota’s governor assured taxpayers that the deployment “will be paid for by a private donation.”
In fact, Willis Johnson, a Republican megadonor and a Tennessee billionaire whose company auctions used cars, acknowledged that he’s helping finance the endeavor, creating a truly bizarre dynamic: a private citizen in one state was sending a check to a governor in a different state in order to pay for a National Guard mission in a third state.
Is this permissible? […]
Rep. Adam Smith, chair of the House Armed Services Committee, said on Wednesday that he would press Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin about reports that the governor of South Dakota accepted private donations to fund the deployment of National Guard members to the U.S.-Mexico border. When asked about Gov. Kristi Noem’s move during an interview on MSNBC’s “Meet the Press Daily,” the Washington Democrat said the Guard should not be treated like a “private militia.”
Smith added, “This is unbelievably dangerous to think that rich people can start using the U.S. military to advance their objectives, independent of what the commander in chief and the secretary of defense think they ought to be doing.”
[…] there are other Republican governors — in Florida, Iowa, and Nebraska, for example — who’ve also made border deployments as part of apparent political stunts. But only Noem received private funds from a party megadonor for the Guard mission.
[…] There’s also, of course, the question of propriety. State Senator Reynold Nesiba (D-S.D.) told the Times, “We cannot be setting up our Guardsmen to be mercenaries. These are not troops for hire by anyone who calls the governor. They are not hers to dispatch for partisan political purposes.” […]
Last month, Kevin McCarthy looked at the job numbers and said President Biden’s economic policies “have stalled our recovery.” Yeah, about that…
Expectations headed into this morning showed projections of about 700,000 new jobs added in the United States in May. As it turns out, according to the new report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the preliminary tally suggests the economy far exceeded expectations.
[…] Nonfarm payrolls increased 850,000 for the month, compared to the Dow Jones estimate of 706,000.
[…] As is always the case, context is everything. The previous reports on April’s and May’s job totals fell short of expectations, raising widespread questions about the strength of the economic recovery. With those figures in mind, this morning’s report offers real relief: job growth in June was the strongest in nearly a year, and it was more than triple the numbers we saw in April.
For Republicans, the data does little to help their talking points. A month ago, for example, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) insisted that President Biden’s economic policies “have stalled our recovery,” adding, “Bidenomics is bad for America.” A month earlier, Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) argued that the White House’s economy agenda was sending the economy into a “tailspin.”
I’ll look forward to their revised statements later today.
[…] As things stand, we’re still more than 6 million jobs short of where we were at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and at the current pace, it will still take a while to get back to February 2020 levels.
All of which is to say, anyone looking at today’s jobs report and thinking Congress need not bother with an ambitious infrastructure package, because the economy is fine, is mistaken. […]
Liz Cheney ignored GOP threats about participating in a Jan. 6 investigation. Kevin McCarthy is eyeing “payback.”
[…] In May, McCarthy [House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy] turned on Senator Liz Cheney with a vengeance, and the Wyoming congresswoman was soon after ousted as House Republican Conference chair for, among other things, taking a stand in support of democracy and failing to honor Donald Trump’s Big Lie about the 2020 presidential election.
This week, tensions reached a new level when Cheney voted to create a special select committee to investigate the Jan. 6 attack — she was one of only two House Republicans to do so — and a day later, accepted an offer from House Speaker Nany Pelosi (D-Calif.) to serve on that panel, even after McCarthy told his members to ignore any such overtures.
The New York Times reports that intra-party fallout now appears inevitable.
Representative Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California and the minority leader, responded angrily to Ms. Cheney’s decision to accept the post, calling it “shocking” and implying that she could lose her seat on the Armed Services Committee as payback. “I don’t know in history where someone would get their committee assignments from the speaker and then expect to get them from the conference as well,” Mr. McCarthy said.
The House GOP leader added that Cheney did not confer with him before accepting Pelosi’s offer. “Maybe she’s closer to her than us,” McCarthy said of Cheney.
On the surface, the idea that these circumstances are “shocking” is silly. The United States’ seat of government faced its deadliest attack in more than two centuries; Congress is seeking answers about the insurrectionist riot; a House Speaker invited a House member to serve on an investigatory committee; and the member agreed.
Why is this “shocking”? Because for the GOP leader, there isn’t one House of Representatives; there’s two: one for Democrats and another for Republicans. As the minority leader sees it, Cheney has a responsibility — not to the country, not to the rule of law, and certainly not to the truth, but to her party’s tribal vision as defined by Kevin McCarthy.
[…] if McCarthy follows through on his threats, and punishes Cheney for audaciously acting like a member of Congress, he’ll be hard pressed to explain why Cheney’s interest in the truth warrants punishment, while he remains indifferent toward House Republicans accused of serious wrongdoing.
If McCarthy backs down, after making private and public threats, he’ll reinforce impressions of weakness and do further damage to his woeful credibility.
Either way, the investigation into the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol is moving ahead — and there’s nothing the minority leader can do about it.
Dominion Voting Systems is already suing Rudy Giuliani personally for defamation. It’s now pulling the former mayor and currently suspended lawyer into its suit against Fox News.
[…] Giuliani has been issued a subpoena as part of the voting machine company’s defamation suit against the news network, requesting all documents related to his appearances on Fox News dating back to 2016. The subpoena also seeks any communications the former president’s former lawyer had with the network about the 2020 election and Dominion.
The subpoena also asks for communications Giuliani had with Fox News about the “truth or falsity” of any of the outlandish claims he made about the voting machine company during his various Fox News hits. It also wants records related to Giuliani’s “formal or informal” relationship with right-wing news network.
This is all according to a Delaware state court filing from earlier this week […]
Fox News is trying to dismiss the Dominion suit and Giuliani is trying to do the same with the defamation suit against him personally. […]
The infamous former Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) is sauntering back to the stage.
LePage, who was term-limited from running for reelection in 2018, filed on Thursday to challenge incumbent Gov. Janet Mills (D) in the state’s 2022 gubernatorial election.
[…] The former governor, who swore he would move out of Maine if Mills were elected in 2018, threw a tantrum when the Democrat won her race and made good on his vow, storming down to Florida. However, he apparently decided to un-banish himself last July and is now living in Maine again.
[…] LePage left a deranged voicemail for a Democratic lawmaker calling him a “little son-of-a-[B-word], socialist c**ks****r,” then explicitly told the lawmaker to make the voicemail public “because I am after you.”
Then he called up the local press to tell them that he wanted a Burr-Hamilton style duel with the lawmaker where LePage swore he would point his gun “right between [the Democrat’s] eyes.”
[…] in addition to openly trafficking in white nationalist “great replacement” rhetoric, LePage also went on a brazenly racist rant in front of constituents about “guys with the name D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty” who “come from Connecticut and New York” to sell heroin and “impregnate a young, white girl before they leave.”
LePage was even ahead of Trump on corrupt efforts to undermine American democracy, defiantly writing “stolen election” when the then-governor had to certify the election results for a 2018 congressional race in which a Democrat had won: […]
The unpopularity of LePage, who won by less than 40% both times he was reelected but had beaten the other candidates by a plurality, eventually spurred Maine voters to establish ranked-choice voting, making the state the first to do so. However, ranked-choice voting is not used in Maine’s gubernatorial elections.
Akira MacKenziesays
Lynna, OM @ 232
Fifty Senate Democrats.
More like 48 Senate Democrats and two bribed, self-aggrandizing schmucks.
It takes serious commitment to out-grotesque Trump but LePage has the chops.
——————–
LePage only ever won office because some damn fool Independent twice insisted on running to split the vote.
—————–
Yes, and some equivalent Independent (largely funded by Republicans) will surely be running this time too. LePage is an abomination but a real threat this time too.
——————–
“You shoot at the enemy. You try to identify the enemy. And the enemy right now, the over-whelming majority right now coming in are people of color,” Governor Paul LePage
“As agriculture, forestry and other land use currently account for about 25% of global emissions, the IPCC draft reports that a global shift to more #plantbased diets could reduce emissions from the food sector by as much as 70% by 2050.”
On his livestream last night, white nationalist Nick Fuentes talked as if the fundraiser for Congressman Paul Gosar is still happening today.
“We’re doing our event on Friday,” he said at one point. Later, he discussed “our fundraiser that we’re having on Friday for Rep. Gosar.”
Congressman Paul Gosar began playing coy and white nationalist Nick Fuentes mostly went quiet after news of the fundraiser blew up earlier this week. But neither has said the event is canceled, and the Gosar has not disavowed Fuentes.
On Monday, white nationalist Nick Fuentes said the strategy is basically to let the uproar blow over. He’s counting on people staying silent or losing enthusiasm. That’s what happened when Rep. Paul Gosar spoke at the event Fuentes organized in February. Everyone just moved on.
Ditch the Home Fireworks This Weekend, Western Officials Beg
Drought and extreme heat have turned whole regions into tinderboxes.
As Independence Day approaches, firefighters and government officials across the West have a message for residents regarding the traditional home fireworks fun: Please abstain.
This year’s combination of soaring temperatures, unusually severe drought, and fears of another epic burn season has prompted local and state officials to get ahead of the July 4 wildfire threat. It is difficult to separate Americans from their beloved fireworks, which generated $1.9 billion in consumer sales in 2020 and, according to the American Pyrotechnics Association, caused some 15,646 injuries. (The APA also cites older data estimating there were 17,800 fireworks-associated blazes in 2011.)
CalFire is taking the threat pretty seriously. On Thursday, California’s state fire agency tweeted out stats about illegal fireworks seizures along the state border, perhaps to demonstrate that its officers mean business.
[…] Nearly 60 million people in western states live in areas currently affected by drought. The Pacific Northwest and Western Canada have been coping with a record-setting heat wave that has killed hundreds of people and hospitalized hundreds more, even as it contributes to more dangerous fire conditions. More than 20 percent of the nation’s land area falls within one of the two most extreme drought categories. The majority of that land, according to Climate.gov, is in areas whose temperature records were just shattered.
Most wildfires—85 percent, according to the National Park Service—are caused by humans. In 2017, a teenager from Vancouver, Washington, threw fireworks into a canyon, igniting the Eagle Creek Fire, which caused evacuations, destroyed homes, and burned almost 48,000 acres in Oregon’s Columbia River Gorge. The 15-year-old was sentenced to five years probation and ordered to pay $36.6 million in restitution, not that he could afford it.
The home of an Alabama state senator was shot at 23 times on Thursday morning, The Associated Press reports.
The home, belonging to Vivian Davis Figures (D-Mobile) was attacked around 5 a.m., according to neighbors.
“I heard shots ring out and I laid there for a few seconds, but I didn’t know whether if I jumped up quick, that a bullet or something may come through the window,” one of the witnesses told Fox 10 News. “I looked out of all the windows to see if I could see anybody walking around or driving but I didn’t see nothing. Just heard the shots.”
[…] Local police report that no one was harmed as a result of the gun shots.
According to Mobile police spokesman Lt. Christopher Levy, the attack “does not appear to be a random act,” but they haven’t been able to determine if it was motivated by the senator’s political stances, AL.com reports.
“It’s way too early to know that,” Levy added. “[Police are] just now starting the investigation, as of this afternoon.” […]
Wonkette: “Trump Lackey Makes Social Media … Thing … For Oppressed White People To Say The N-Word!”
Things are going great over at Trumphumper Jason Miller’s new Twitter knockoff site GETTR. The supposedly free speech platform’s anti-cancel culture credo was immediately put the test as the site was overrun last night by a horde of racists and groypers and Nazis and plain old scammers riding on the filthy hashtags to flog their own shit.
The site passed with flying colors! Or not, depending on your perspective.
In accordance with its own terms of service, GETTR’s mods set about purging some of the more obvious Nazi elements, including Paul Gosar’s pal Nick Fuentes. Take that, cancel culture! […]
But the site is still chock full of N-word hashtags, including in its own trending topics, as of this writing. […]
Meanwhile, it took about 10 minutes for reporters on the alt-Right fuckery beat to work out that the site was basically a repurposed version of Chinese anti-communist media billionaire Guo Wengui’s Getome platform.
Guo, AKA Miles Kwok, AKA the Chinese Communist Party’s public enemy number one, AKA that weirdo who funds Steve Bannon, has appeared on Your Wonkette before, most notably when the mail man arrested Bannon on his yacht. But Guo and his allies appear to have been behind some of the loonier Hunter Biden laptop fabrications.[…]
And we are not dragging you down that crazy rabbit hole on a Friday afternoon, but … let’s just stipulate that this guy’s involvement indicates that this endeavor may not be entirely on the up and up.
“Some of the initial seed money has come from his family foundation,” Miller confirmed to The Daily Beast, which was the first to break the news of Guo’s involvement in the project.
Guo isn’t a direct investor in Gettr, according to Miller, and doesn’t have a seat on its board or other formal role. The Trump adviser said the company was backed by a “consortium of international investors,” but declined to name them, beyond the Guo foundation, or the total amount of money that has been invested in the new social-media property so far. But while Miller downplayed Guo’s connection, sites associated with the billionaire have suggested that Gettr is Guo’s brainchild.
In a June video on GTV, a media outlet that serves as a mouthpiece for Guo, a host summarizing a recent Guo made about Getter said that the social media platform was “the concentration of Miles’s whole life work.” The host added that Guo had come up with the idea for Gettr’s logo, a torch.
Which is not exactly great publicity, so Miller hightailed it to the Wall Street Journal, looking for some friendlier coverage. There he downplayed the seed money from “the Guo family foundation,” emphasizing that the site had many investors, none of whom exerted managerial control. But when asked, he failed to disclose the identities of said investors.
He did, however, explain how he intends to go from Step 1: Collect Nazi Underpants to Step 4: PROFIT!!!
Later this year, Gettr is planning to roll out an “online appreciation” function that will let users donate to politicians directly, Mr. Miller said. Rather than advertising, Mr. Miller said the platform is looking to make money from e-commerce.
……………….
Oh, hey, remember that fun time when the Trump campaign tricked its low rent donors into making thousands of dollars of recurring donations using deceptive language and fine print? Who’s excited to hand their credit card info over to the majordomo of Trumpland so he can help us engage in a little “online appreciation” of our favorite politicians? […]
In short, this off-brand Twitter wannabe POS platform by one of the most insufferable grifters in Trumpland is going exactly as well as expected. And we here at Wonkette wish Mr. Miller continued success in all his future endeavors.
And throughout the American West, a hue and cry could be heard everywhere: “FIRST THEY MAKE US WEAR MASKS, THEN THEY FOIST THAR FAUCI-GATES-SATAN JUICE ON US, NOW THEY IS TAKEN AWAY OUR FOURTH OF JU-LY!?!?!? THIS IS ALL JUS’ FAKE NEWS LIKE COVID AND JAN-YOU-AARY SIXTH! THAR TAINT NO ‘WILDFIRES!!!!'”
Residents of older, substandard mobile homes [sometimes called “manufactured homes”] are at higher risk of death in summer’s blazing temperatures.
For the past 23 years, Jim Filipiak, 73, has lived in a 1976 singlewide mobile home. Mobile homes dominate the flat landscape of his Tucson neighborhood, a mostly treeless plot near the railroad tracks and Interstate 10. The retiree and Vietnam veteran has remodeled his home and kept up with maintenance, but there’s little he can do to shield himself from what has become the norm in Arizona: searing, deadly summer heat.
Filipiak has two window air-conditioners, but they suck up electricity and drive up the bill, so he only runs the AC for the few hottest hours of the day to protect his two rescue dogs. Even if he could afford a more efficient central AC unit, the wiring in his home couldn’t sustain it. Instead, Filipiak relies on an evaporative cooler, until summer rains and humidity in July and August render it useless. Then he relies on fans. In mid-June, when Tucson and Phoenix both broke records for triple-digit heat, the interior temperature of his home never dropped below 90 degrees, day or night.
Last summer’s relentless, 100-degree heat and compounding drought killed a record 520 people in Arizona — twice the total deaths reported nationally from hurricanes, wildfires, tornadoes, severe storms and floods, and a significant increase from the past decade, when heat-related deaths in Arizona never went above 283. With this summer already dangerously hot, researchers are sounding the alarm about a heat-vulnerable community that has been historically disregarded because of where they live: substandard, aged mobile homes.
[…] at least 13 people in Maricopa County alone died in their mobile homes, said Patricia Solis, a geographer and executive director of the Knowledge Exchange for Resilience at Arizona State University. (Mobile home-specific death totals are not available statewide.) Thousands more are vulnerable again this summer, as punishing temperatures are already smothering parts of the country.
Already the first victims of natural disasters, residents of these older mobile homes are a microcosm of the at-risk population for heat emergencies: the poor and those living on fixed incomes, the very young and the elderly, people with disabilities, people who live alone and people of color. Filipiak’s neighborhood includes a Native American community.
[…] “They are not energy compliant in any way,” said J.J. Swinney, chief production officer at Habitat for Humanity Tucson. Mobile home residents call its emergency hotline repeatedly to beg for help with homes that are falling apart and mobile home parks that don’t care.
He finds it unconscionable that low-income people are forced into living conditions like these “just because that’s what they can afford.”
“It breaks my heart,” said Swinney, who grew up in a mobile home. There isn’t much that Habitat Tucson can do. “It could cost $30,000 to make them safe,” he said. “They aren’t worth $30,000.”
In Tucson, mobile homes and modern manufactured housing represent more than 10 percent of the housing units in the city of 550,000, more than Los Angeles and Phoenix combined. Of that, 17,000 structures were built pre-1976.
The danger extends well beyond Arizona. Of the 6.5 million manufactured homes in the United States, mostly located in the Sun Belt, from California to Florida, one-third match the deadly substandard profile, research shows.
[…] the vulnerabilities and emotional stress that mobile home residents face in parks operated by unscrupulous or greedy managers.
More insidious, she [Esther Sullivan, author and assistant professor of sociology at the University of Colorado Denver] said, is the history of municipal planning that has kept mobile homes in their place: redlining. She lays the responsibility at the feet of society, citing the pervasive stigma of “trailer trash.”
“Zoning has kept mobile home parks situated along interstates and highways, in industrial and commercial zones, and it has kept them out of residential neighborhoods, making them far more at risk of environmental hazards, like flooding and heat,” said Sullivan. “These redline effects last for years.”
As disheartening as the structural conditions of the aged mobile homes are to the researchers, Kear is equally galled by what he sees as their discriminatory financial policies, many of them based on the traditional view of mobile homes as movable, not permanent, housing, when, in fact, they represent one of the last vestiges of unsubsidized affordable housing. […]
Firefighters are tackling three major wildfires in California.
Firefighters in California are battling three sizable wildfires in what authorities are characterizing as a worrying sign that this year’s fire season could be even more devastating than the record-breaking destruction seen in 2020.
“We’re seeing a large increase in fires on a historical basis compared to where we would be at this time last year,” Cal Fire Battalion Chief Jon Heggie said. “This is a large indicator that we’re looking at another busy fire season — all the same scenarios that set up last year for such a devastating year have the same potential for this year.”
As of Friday morning, the Lava Fire north of Mount Shasta, an active volcano, had burned 23,849 acres, with 27 percent of the flames contained by a team of over 1,000 firefighters, according to the U.S. Forest Service. The fire sparked June 25 after a lightning strike.
To the north, in the Klamath National Forest, the Tennant Fire has been rapidly growing since Monday afternoon — already burning 9,836 acres, with 6 percent containment. According to the U.S. Forest Service, more than 500 firefighters are attempting to control it.
In Shasta County — some 20 miles north of Redding, Calif. — the Salt Fire broke out Wednesday morning, covering 4,500 acres in flames and destroying “at least a dozen homes, garages and other outbuildings” on Thursday, the Redding Record Searchlight reported. […]
With little fanfare, Bagram Air Base — once the military’s nerve center — was handed over to the Afghans, after nearly 20 years of waging war from the hub.
American troops and their Western allies have departed the U.S. military base that coordinated the sprawling war in Afghanistan […] effectively ending major U.S. military operations in the country after nearly two decades.
For generations of American service members, the military hub, Bagram Air Base, was a gateway to and from a war that cut across constant changes on the battlefield and in presidential administrations. But the final withdrawal overnight on Thursday occurred with little fanfare and no public ceremony, and in an atmosphere of grave concern over the Afghan security forces’ ability to hold off Taliban advances across the country.
The American exit was completed quickly enough that some looters managed to get into the base before being arrested, Afghan officials said.
The quiet leave-taking from the base weeks before the planned withdrawal of American troops in mid July, and months ahead of President’s Biden announced Sept. 11 departure, highlights Washington’s efforts to signal two different messages: one to the U.S. public that its longest foreign war is ending, and another to the Afghan government that the United States is not abandoning the country in the middle of a Taliban offensive, and would retain some ability to conduct airstrikes if need be. […]
As Afghan Forces Crumble, an Air of Unreality Grips the Capital.
With the Taliban advancing and U.S. troops leaving, President Ashraf Ghani and his aides have become increasingly insular, and Kabul is slipping into shock.
With his military crumbling, President Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan fired a crucial part of his command structure and brought in a new one. He created a nebulous “supreme state council,” announced months ago, that has hardly met. And as districts fall to the Taliban across the country, he has installed a giant picture of himself outside the airport’s domestic terminal.
[…] Americans have not been a visible presence in the city for years, so the U.S. departure has not affected surface normality: Markets bustle and streets are jammed with homeward-bound civil servants by midafternoon. At night, the corner bakeries continue to be illuminated by a single bulb as vendors sell late into the evening.
But beneath the surface there is unease as the Taliban creep steadily toward Kabul.
“There’s no hope for the future,” said Zubair Ahmad, 23, who runs a grocery store on one of the Khair Khana neighborhood’s main boulevards. “Afghans are leaving the country. I don’t know whether I am going to be safe 10 minutes from now.”
The government passport office has been jam-packed in recent days, filled with a jostling mob, even though visa options for Afghans are severely limited. Some of the humanitarian organizations on which the beleaguered citizenry depend said they would begin limiting the number of expatriate employees kept in the country, anticipating a worsening of the security climate.
The security blanket that the United States provided for two decades haunts the Afghan government’s actions, in-actions and policies, fostering an atrophying of any proactive planning, in the view of some analysts. If there is a plan to counter the Taliban advance, it is not evident as the government’s hold on the countryside shrinks.
Intelligence estimates for the government’s collapse and a Taliban takeover have ranged from six months to two years. Whenever it comes, the outlook is likely to be grim for Mr. Ghani and his circle, as recent Afghan history demonstrates. Several of his predecessors in the country’s top job have met violent ends. […]
The good news for Trump in the new C-SPAN historians’ survey is that he didn’t rank at the very bottom. The bad news is, he was close to the very bottom.
It was four years ago this month, just six months into Donald Trump’s term, when the Republican first broached the subject of adding his image to Mount Rushmore. It was an early reminder, not just of Trump’s unhealthy narcissism, but of his ambitions to be seen as a president of historic greatness.
Actual historians know better. C-SPAN surveyed 142 historians, professors, and other professional observers of the presidency and this week released the rankings of every president, from best to worst. (There are, to be sure, more than one set of rankings, and they always make for fun conversation pieces.)
Here’s the top 10 from the C-SPAN survey:
Abraham Lincoln
George Washington
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Harry S. Truman
Thomas Jefferson
John F. Kennedy
Ronald Reagan
Barack Obama
And here’s the bottom 10:
Zachary Taylor
Herbert Hoover
Warren G. Harding
Millard Fillmore
John Tyler
William Henry Harrison
Donald J. Trump
Franklin Pierce
Andrew Johnson
James Buchanan
I always like kicking around arbitrary conversation pieces like these, so here are some more-or-less random observations about the rankings:
* It struck me as notable that C-SPAN did the same survey of historians four years ago, and the top nine presidents remained completely unchanged between 2017 and 2021. As for #10, four years ago, it was LBJ. Now, it’s Obama, who’s up from #12, and whom I’d rank even higher.
* I can appreciate why Pierce, Johnson, and Buchanan are the bottom three — they usually do — and there’s no denying the scope of their failures. But I can’t help but believe that Trump, in time, will sink even lower in these rankings, if for no other reason because he stands alone as a twice-impeached failure who actively sought to undermine his own country’s democracy by overturning an election he lost. [Not to mention over 600,000 deaths due to coronavirus in the USA.]
* Including William Henry Harrison in rankings like these seems unfair. The guy only served a month in office before dying.
* If you notice that the rankings go to #44, even though Trump was the 45th president, there’s a simple explanation: Trump served as the nation’s 45th presidency, but 44 people (before Biden) have held the office: Grover Cleveland served two non-consecutive terms. […]
The Republican line, last month: The economy’s bad, blame Biden. The Republican line, this month: The economy’s good, credit Trump.
For those rooting for the U.S. economy, it’s been a terrific week. Initial unemployment filings fell to a 15-month low; the Congressional Budget Office raised its projection for 2021 economic growth to 7.4%; and the economy added 850,000 new jobs in June, far ahead of expectations. The same report showed rising wages for American workers.
With data like this in mind, it wasn’t too surprising to see President Joe Biden spend some time celebrating this morning.
In remarks Friday morning, Biden credited his sweeping coronavirus relief package with fueling the country’s job growth, after the release of a report showing that 850,000 jobs were added in June. “None of this happened by accident,” Biden said. “Again, it’s a direct result of the American Rescue Plan. And at the time, people questioned whether or not we should do that, even though we didn’t have bipartisan support. Well, it worked.”
[…] Biden’s boasts are rooted in fact, and they create a challenge for his Republican detractors.
As we discussed earlier, it was just last month when House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) insisted that the president’s economic policies “have stalled our recovery,” adding, “Bidenomics is bad for America.” A month earlier, Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) argued that the White House’s economy agenda was sending the economy into a “tailspin.”
Around the same time, House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), pointing to the April jobs report, said Biden’s “far-left radical socialist policies” led to “the worst jobs report in over 20 years.”
Stefanik’s rhetoric was plainly foolish — the economy created more than a quarter of a million jobs in April — but the Republican leader’s nonsensical claims were part of a larger partisan gamble: the slower the economic recovery appeared in the spring, the more aggressively GOP officials would blame Biden, his party, and their ambitious American Recovery Plan.
It was, however, a bad bet: Republicans who said Democratic policies were directly tied to the health of the economy were inadvertently crediting Biden and his party with a recovery that’s gaining strength.
And so, it’s time for the GOP to come up with new talking points. Take Sen. Chuck Grassley’s (R-Iowa) latest pitch, for example. […] “The pre pandemic best economy in 50 [years] started by Trump tax cut is roaring back after a virus interlude.”
To the extent that reality still has any meaning, the idea that the pre-pandemic economy was the best in 50 years is demonstrably ridiculous. It’s not a matter of opinion; there are basic facts that are inescapable.
What’s more, the idea that the Republicans’ 2017 package of tax breaks for the wealthy created an economic boom is also spectacularly wrong. Again, this an objective, not a subjective, truth.
But let’s not miss the forest for the trees: after Republicans spent May and June arguing that the economy was bad at it’s Biden’s fault, Grassley now wants the public to believe the economy is good and Trump deserves the credit.
If GOP officials — each of whom rejected the American Rescue Plan that’s helping fuel the recovery — want to be taken seriously, they’ll have to do far better than this.
Good news: The New Hampshire Supreme Court this morning struck down new voter-registration restrictions imposed by Republican policymakers in the state. As a WMUR report explained, the state’s highest court concluded that the measures could deter people from registering and voting and “imposes unreasonable burdens on the right to vote.”
NBC News: “Arizona Senate Republicans’ extraordinarily partisan and controversial ballot review again extended their lease this week, adding at least two more weeks to the already delayed operation.”
Several Republicans who partook in the GOP’s political stunt at the border earlier this week got chummy with a far-right activist who livestreamed himself breaking into the Capitol with the rest of the pro-Trump mob on January 6.
The activist, Anthony Aguero, who is also a friend of far-right troll Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), did a livestream at the GOP lawmakers’ visit to the border at La Joya, Texas on Tuesday, during which he chatted with the motley crew of Greene’s equally strident peers, including Reps. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) and Madison Cawthorn (R-NC).
The livestream also showed Aguero speaking with Michael Cloud (R-TX), John Rose (R-TN), Mary Miller (R-IL), Tom Tiffany (R-WI), Chris Jacobs (R-NY) and Ronny Jackson (R-TX), the former White House physician-turned-far-right member of Congress.
[…] A spokesperson for the Republican Study Committee, the caucus that organized the border trip, claimed in an interview with CNN that it was “purely incidental” that Aguero was there and that the committee was “unaware of his identity and whereabouts on January 6.” “He did not travel with our group to the border,” the spokesperson, Buckley Carlson, told CNN. […]
[…] The Trump Organization plotted to provide untaxed benefits to its employees off the books, and Weisselberg, who has worked for Donald Trump for decades, was one of the key beneficiaries of that scheme. And that scheme is not likely to go over all that well with the general public.
I’m not optimistic that Weisselberg will flip but I am optimistic he’ll be convicted. The law is fairly clear on what is income & what is taxable. He’s a sophisticated executive; mistake is implausible. The company booked much of it as income. And juries hate rich tax cheats. —Preet Bharara
David Frum, a former George W. Bush speechwriter and author of Trumpocalypse: Restoring American Democracy, has written a damning piece for The Atlantic in which he highlights what the Trump Organization left unsaid in its response to today’s charges. And, again, this is all very easy for nonexperts like you and me to follow:
An early indication that things may end badly for Trump is the statement released today from the Trump Organization. “Allen Weisselberg is a loving and devoted husband, father and grandfather who has worked for the Trump Organization for 48 years. He is now being used by the Manhattan District Attorney as a pawn in a scorched earth attempt to harm the former President. The District Attorney is bringing a case involving employee benefits that neither the IRS nor any other District Attorney would ever think of bringing. This is not justice; this is politics.”
Hmm. Sounds like they’re angry. And more than a little bit scared.
Here is what is missing from that statement: “I’m 100 percent confident that every investigation will always end up in the same conclusion, which is that I follow all rules, procedures, and, most importantly, the law.” That’s the language used by former Trump Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke when he was facing ethics charges in 2018. Likewise, when Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe was accused of violating campaign-finance laws in 2016, he too was “very confident” that “there was no wrongdoing.” Plug the phrases very confident and no wrongdoing into a search engine and you will pull up statement after statement by politicians and business leaders under fire. … It’s the thing an innocent person would want to say. So it’s kind of a tell when it goes unsaid.
Okay, so they didn’t say Weisselberg is innocent, but they did note that he’s a grandfather. Sure. Unfortunately for the Trump Org, this isn’t The Waltons, and no one gives a shit.
Predictably, Trump has tried to frame these charges as part of a post-presidency witch hunt, calling the indictments “rude, nasty, and totally biased.”
For his part, Frum isn’t buying it.
That line of defense may well rally Trump’s supporters. It will not do him much good in court. It’s impossible for tax collectors to scrutinize every return. Selecting high-profile evaders and holding them to account is how tax laws are enforced. And if a former president numbers among those high-profile evaders, that makes the case for targeting him stronger, not weaker. It sends the message that the tax authorities most want to send: Everybody has to pay, especially powerful politicians. In 1974, former President Richard Nixon faced a review of his taxes that ultimately presented him with a bill equal to half his net worth at the time. Members of Congress have faced indictment for tax evasion, as have high-profile state and local officials.
[…] Derrick Johnson, the president and CEO of the NAACP, [calls the recent Supreme Court decision] “yet another full-frontal attack on our democracy. […] It sent a clear message: While states across the country continue to suppress the votes of Black and Brown people and let the power of big money rig our elections, they will get a free pass,” he said. “Given today’s decision and the nearly 30 anti-voting bills that have become law nationwide, Congress must do its job and pass both the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act,” Johnson continued. “We will not sit idly by while corrupt politicians try to silence us. We will see you in the courts, in Congress and in the streets.”
That needs to be now in Congress. Some Democrats recognize this and the very real deadlines facing them. Sen. Jeff Merkley, who has been working tirelessly to reform the filibuster for years, called the court’s voting rights decision “outrageous” and said “this is exactly why we need federal protections to ensure every American has equal access to the ballot box.” He said that Congress only has until the end of August to pass this legislation to give state elections officials time to implement the changes it will require before midterms next year. Additionally, states are gearing up right now for redistricting, or in the case of Republican states, more gerrymandering. The For the People Act would prevent that, but it has to happen soon.
Which means the fight to end the filibuster has to happen now, and right now is when Sen. Kyrsten Sinema needs to be put on the spot. It was, after all, her home state that set this new Supreme Court precedent with its voter suppression laws. As one Democratic Senate aide told The Hill, this “should be a wake-up call to her” and “should be effective in refocusing her attention. […] For her own safety and security electorally it’s hard to imagine she’s going to have support,” with her obstinance on filibuster reform. She needs to hear that message now from her leadership, from President Biden.
Oh, and by they way, the nation is probably going to bump up against the debt ceiling in a month, and so far “the U.S. Congress lacks a clear plan to raise it.” That’s kind of an existential thing, too, that really should be dealt with before Congress swans off for three months.
Pelosi has jammed Kevin McCarthy into a corner on the 1/6 committee. Picking Republicans who supported the Big Lie will show how deeply implicated the party is in the crime. Yet he can’t pick Rs who will treat the proceedings seriously, either. My latest:…
Kevin McCarthy may pick Elise Stefanik and Jim Jordan for the 1/6 committee, according to Punchbowl News.
They are both major proponents of the Big Lie.
Indeed, virtually every GOPer floated by Punchbowl voted against Biden’s electors:…
@rickperlstein says we’re seeing an “insurgency against democracy with parliamentary and paramilitary wings.”
There’s really a spectrum here, and congressional Republicans can be found all along it.
The 1/6 committee will inevitably illuminate this:…
A highly suggestive quote from @RepRaskin, to me:
“If we are willing to identify the role of the president of the US in these events, surely we have to be willing to look at the role all other relevant actors played. We want nothing but the facts.”
Per #228, Pelosi is selecting these remaining members, “in consultation with” McCarthy. AFAIK he can’t make selections himself. He also can’t unilaterally remove House members from their committees.
“#Lukashenko has just announced that #Belarus completely closes the border with Ukraine. He went on to say that ‘a huge amount of weapons comes from Ukraine to Belarus’. It might be an act of revenge on Ukraine. It is now even more crucial that Ukraine joins EU sanctions”
What #353 is alluding to: “ALERT: New Hampshire Supreme Court STRIKES DOWN restrictive voter residency law that targeted young, low-income and minority voters. The court ruled that the law violates the state constitution by imposing ‘unreasonable burdens on the right to vote’.”
LOL: “#France’s @MoetHennessy reportedly suspended exports of its champagnes to #Russia following approval of a new Russian law which defines that #champagne designation is only applicable to sparkling wines made in Russia.
#Kafka”
johnson catmansays
re Lynna @347: How is it that official election officials can count millions of ballots in a couple of days at most, and these idiot have had a couple of months and STILL haven’t been able to count the ballots from ONE CITY? Incompetence personified!
Champagne producer Moët Hennessy […] temporarily suspended the supply of its products to Russia. This was reported by Vedomosti and RBC with reference to a letter from the company to its Russian partners. On the eve of the Russian authorities banned foreigners from using the term “champagne”.
As specified in the letter, the termination of the supply of champagne is due to amendments to the federal law “On the regulation of alcoholic beverages”, which were adopted by the State Duma and approved by the Federation Council earlier this week. Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the bill on July 2, RIA Novosti notes.
The bill […] introduces additional requirements for wine products. In particular, the document excludes the concept of “champagne” and allows its use only in relation to “Russian champagne” produced in Russia.
“And obliges the producers of champagne wines from the French region of Champagne to rename their products to ‘sparkling wine'” added to Moët Hennessy.
[…]
Twenty people are now confirmed to have died in the collapse of Champlain Towers in Surfside, Florida.
President Biden visited the scene of the disaster. From the Washington Post:
During his trip to a grief-stricken stretch of Florida beachfront on Thursday, Biden summoned two defining features of his political identity: empathy and bipartisanship.
Meanwhile, the first hurricane of the 2021 Atlantic season, Elsa, is bearing down on Florida. There’s really no way to secure the damaged building before the storm hits, so rescue teams will probably have to stop their activities on the pile of debris at some point.
The Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general blocked an inquiry into whether senior agency officials demoted an employee who criticized the Trump administration, according to people familiar with the matter and a whistle-blower complaint obtained by The New York Times.
The inspector general, Joseph V. Cuffari, ignored recommendations from his investigators and delayed the inquiry until after the 2020 election, according to officials familiar with the matter and a whistle-blower complaint filed in April.
At issue was whether Brian Murphy, a former intelligence chief at the department, was demoted by its leadership last summer for warning his superiors and Mr. Cuffari’s office that the Trump administration had deliberately withheld reports about the rising threat of domestic extremism — a warning that proved prescient after the Capitol riot on Jan. 6 — and Russia’s attempts to influence the election.
Mr. Murphy filed his own complaint about his reassignment in September. But Mr. Cuffari and his aides delayed looking into his claims for weeks last fall and limited the time investigators had to conduct interviews, according to people familiar with the matter and the separate April complaint, filed by Brian Volsky, a former senior investigator in Mr. Cuffari’s office.
Mr. Volsky’s complaint, dated April 27, was first obtained by the Project on Government Oversight, an independent watchdog group in Washington. The organization brought the information to The Times, which confirmed its authenticity with four government officials familiar with the matter. […]
In his complaint last September, Mr. Murphy said he was demoted because he had raised concerns with his superiors and the inspector general on multiple occasions — from March 2018 to August 2020 — that the Trump administration had distorted intelligence to align with the president’s political priorities. Chad F. Wolf, the acting homeland security secretary at the time, and his top aides have repeatedly denied that claim. The investigation into Mr. Murphy’s claims is continuing, according to Mark Zaid, his lawyer. […]
When the images of a situation in the news might plausibly be captioned “Godzilla makes appearance in Gulf,” or “portal to hell opens wide,” or “chunk of sun falls into ocean,” it’s a pretty good sign that things have gone badly. But actually, the idea that a Kaiju might have been wandering beneath the waters off Mexico might have been better than the truth. Because on Friday, Mexico’s state oil company, Pemex, managed to set the ocean on fire.
The flames were the result of an underwater pipeline rupture near the Ku Maloob Zaap oil platform about 70 miles off the Yucatan coast. When natural gas from that pipeline caught fire, it resulted in a thousand-yard patch of ocean that was literally boiling. A vortex of flames developed around house-sized bubbles of methane that burst from the surface of the sea. The result was not just the incredible images of the ocean on fire, but even stranger image,s like that featured above, in which a group of ships are trying to put out the ocean by pumping water onto it.
The flames eventually subsided more than five hours later, after Pemex was apparently able to close the valves leading to the leaking pipe. This particular accident doesn’t seem to have come with a death toll—at least, not a human death toll—and for Pemex, that’s saying something. Because, as Statista notes, the company has a long history of making historically bad mistakes. including a series of explosions with with triple-digit body counts.
The official statement from Pemex officials on Friday’s event insisted that there was “no spill,” which might be true in the sense that the world wasn’t left to deal with billions of gallons of oil spread out across the Gulf (see Deepwater Horizon, or basically any undersea oil platform). Yet it was certainly not true in the sense that they released massive amounts of one of the most potent greenhouse gases while setting the ocean on fire. It’s also not true in the sense that this is another example of pollution from the extraction and burning of fossil fuels […]
as a symbol of just how awful this process really is, it was hard to beat.
Paul Gosar has already proven that he is a terrible person, but for unknown reasons he continues to pile on evidence that he is even worse than we thought:
[…] Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona took time away from denying he was going to join a second fundraiser for white nationalists this week to send out a fundraising email. That email has all kinds of truly abhorrent claims in it.
Washington Post reporter Mike DeBontis tweeted out a screenshot of the purported email. In it, Gosar describes himself as “an American First warrior” who will “stand up to the cancel culture vultures that surround me from the left and the right.” Narcissist says what? After dedicating another couple of paragraphs to hoisting himself on his own cross and explaining how “crazed liberals” and “far-left media” are persecuting him, he goes in on his own special idea of how to investigate the events of Jan. 6, 2021.
Facts are coming to light that the FBI might have had a hand in planning and carrying out that event. The only person who was murdered that day was Senior Airman Ashli Babbitt, a war veteran and mother. She was executed in cold blood by an unidentified killer.
He ends it with the old, give me money.
[…] I’m asking you to chip in whatever you can to my reelection campaign, whether it’s $5, $50, or $500, to help me continue in my mission to fight the radical left’s bogus narrative, and put America First […]
Gosar isn’t alone. He’s just asking directly for money off of the commercials for this conspiracy theory that Tucker Carlson, suspected human trafficker Rep. Matt Gaetz, and super creep Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene have been pretending is news the past few months. All of these people, and maybe particularly Gosar himself, have really been hysterical in their attempts to obfuscate any real investigation into the events surrounding Jan. 6, 2021.
Gosar is a well-documented crummy person. The people who have known him best—his brothers and sisters—believe him to be a traitor to our country, and have campaigned against him vigorously. Well-known antisemite and white nationalist Nick Fuentes has been promoting a July 2 fundraiser in tandem with his “White Boy Summer Tour” with Gosar, something these two creeps have done before.* Gosar, after tweeting out a cryptic statement about not believing the left, decided to sort of deny he knew anything about anything. […]
President Joe Biden on Friday unveiled more nominees for ambassadorships, including for Germany, Kosovo and Ghana. The announcement confirmed murmurs about Biden’s plans to tap political philosopher Amy Gutmann as ambassador to Germany.
Gutmann’s nomination comes at a crucial time for the transatlantic relationship in the post-Trump era and just weeks before German Chancellor Angela Merkel is set to visit the White House. Her appointment would come more than a year after former President Donald Trump’s controversial ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, resigned from his job. If confirmed, Gutmann would be the first woman to hold the post.
[…] “As the daughter of a German Jewish refugee, as a first-generation college graduate, and as a university leader devoted to advancing constitutional democracy, I am grateful beyond what any words can adequately express to President Biden for the faith he has placed in me to help represent America’s values and interests to one of our closest and most important European allies,” Gutmann said in a statement to the university community Friday evening, telling students and faculty that she would continue to serve as president until she’s confirmed by the Senate.
Biden also named Chantale Wong as nominee for director of the Asian Development Bank, with the rank of ambassador. Wong, with more than 30 years of experience in international policy, including finance, technology, and the environment, has served under Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. Wong was also appointed to senior roles in the Office of Management and Budget, Treasury, NASA and the Environmental Protection Agency. Wong is the first out lesbian and LGBTQ person of color to be nominated for an ambassador-level position, according to the Victory Institute.
Jeffrey Hovenier, a career foreign service member, was nominated for ambassador to the Republic of Kosovo. Hovenier serves as the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Ankara, Turkey, and has served at missions in Croatia, Greece, Panama, Paraguay and Peru. He speaks German, Greek, Croatian and Spanish.
Virginia Palmer, another career member of the senior foreign service, is up for ambassador to the Republic of Ghana. Palmer is principal deputy assistant secretary for the State Department’s Bureau of Energy Resources. She was the U.S. ambassador for Malawi from 2015 to 2019. […]
Dozens of the more than 500 people charged in connection with the Jan. 6 Capitol riot have been accused in court documents of attempting to delete photos and other content from their phones and social media accounts to hide their participation in the mob attack.
According to an analysis from The Associated Press, at least 49 people charged by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia have been accused of attempting to erase online and mobile phone content from Jan. 6.
[…] only a handful of riot defendants have actually been charged with tampering with evidence in connection with their deletion of material from phones and social media accounts.
Tampering with documents or proceedings was one of the charges levied against several alleged members of the right-wing paramilitary group the Oath Keepers in a superseding indictment earlier this year that included additional crimes such as conspiracy, obstruction of an official proceeding and destruction of government property.
According to prosecutors, one defendant told Mark Grods, the second Oath Keepers member to plead guilty to conspiracy in connection with the riot, that he should “make sure that all signal comms about the op has been deleted and burned.”
Additionally, prosecutors said in court documents that the alleged Oath Keepers member and Navy veteran Thomas Caldwell between Jan. 6 and Jan. 16 “did corruptly alter, destroy, mutilate, and conceal a record, document, and other object, and attempted to do so, with the intent to impair its integrity and availability for use in an official proceeding.”
[…] The AP reported in April that riot defendants were attempting to use journalism as part of their defense, arguing that they were part of the crowd that stormed the Capitol in protest of President Biden’s electoral win in order to live stream and cover the protests for right-wing news sites.
The US Olympic team has suspended track and field star Sha’Carri Richardson for testing positive for marijuana. Olympic athletes are banned from smoking weed, because according to the the World Anti-Doping Agency and the US Anti-Doping Agency, it “poses a health risk to athletes, has the potential to enhance performance and violates the spirit of sport.”
I’m going to give you a moment to think about this, and really take all of it in.
The hell kind of athletic ability is enhanced by marijuana? […]I feel relatively sure that in the history of the world, no one has smoked pot because it made them better at running.
Travis “Reefer Madness” Tygart, spokesperson for the US Anti-Doping Agency, released a totally enraging statement saying, “The rules are clear, but this is heartbreaking on many levels; hopefully, her acceptance of responsibility and apology will be an important example to us all that we can successfully overcome our regrettable decisions, despite the costly consequences of this one to her.”
She smoked pot, Travis, she didn’t kill anyone. It’s a legal substance in 18 states. She didn’t take steroids, she didn’t take any actual performance enhancing drugs, she smoked pot. And apparently she did it because she was traumatized by the fact that she learned of her birth mother’s death from a reporter asking her about it.
[…] Drowning in a sea of bullshit
Also yesterday: Soul Cap, a company that produces swimming caps specifically designed for Black hair, was told that FINA, the international governing body for swimming, would not be certifying their caps for competition because they don’t follow “the natural form of the head.” Whatever the hell on earth that means.
FINA also told Soul Cap that to their “best knowledge, the athletes competing at the international events never used, neither require to use, caps of such size and configuration.” Which is probably true if they were only checking with white swimmers. Perhaps if they had checked in with Alice Dearing, who is about to be the first Black woman to represent Great Britain in Olympic swimming events and is in fact a brand ambassador for the swim caps, they might have had even better knowledge. […]
Unfortunately for Black swimmers, swim caps made for white hair do not work for their hair, often because they are just too small. This would be surprising if it were not already known that swimming as a sport has a real long way to go when it comes to inclusion. In the States, less than one percent of USA Swimming membership is Black. Four-time Olympic medalist Simone Manuel has spoken about this issue frequently, as well as the swim cap problem.
Via CBS:
She also used her platform to promote a message from the AfroSwimmers group, which asked USA Swimming to hire more black coaches and “approve and support the use of larger swim caps for swimmers with natural hair and locs,” among other things.
While speaking with CBS News, Manuel said she wants people to “try to dismantle stereotypes, to not feel like people have to be put in a box, because we’re all capable of doing wonderful things, but systems in place have constantly made people feel inferior or made them feel like they can’t achieve the things they can achieve.”
That interview occurred a year ago, by the way, which makes it especially odd that “to the best of their knowledge,” FINA has simply never heard of this being an issue.
And the icing on the cake …
The International Olympics Committee has decided to allow protests … just not during events or medal ceremonies. Meaning that things will not end well for anyone considering protesting any of this bullshit by emulating the 1968 Black Power salute at the Mexico City Olympics. It also seems to be a deliberate message to hammer-throwing track and field star Gwen Berry, who pissed off US conservatives this week by refusing to look at the flag during the national anthem. […]
The emergency department at Oregon Health Sciences University had rarely been this busy, even during the worst stages of the covid-19 pandemic.
Physicians raced to provide fluids to patients who arrived breathless, dizzy and drenched in sweat. Others were brought in on stretchers, their body temperatures so high their central nervous systems had shut down. Those who could still speak told of stifling apartments and sun that made their skin sizzle. Some had tried to walk to county cooling shelters, only to collapse in the blistering heat.
“The system was overwhelmed,” said Mary Tanski, chair of OHSU’s department of emergency medicine, of the towering heat dome that toppled temperature records across the Northwest this week.
Some patients didn’t survive. In Oregon, Washington and western Canada, authorities are investigating more than 800 deaths potentially linked to the punishing heat.
It will be months before experts know precisely how many of those deaths can be specifically attributed to climate change. But researchers who specialize in the science of attribution say they are “virtually certain” that warming from human greenhouse gas emissions played a pivotal role.
It is a sign of how dangerous the climate crisis has gotten — and how much worse it can still become. […]
Nearly half a million people in Madagascar are at risk of starvation as the country grapples with dust storms, locusts and its worst drought in decades. In Verkhoyansk, Siberia — usually one of the coldest inhabited places on the planet — the land surface temperature was 118 degrees. […]
Within the next week, researchers expect to publish a “rapid attribution” study that determines how climate change made the Northwest heat wave more likely. Yet precisely quantifying the role of climate change in the event has been difficult because the heat was just so extreme, said Michael Wehner, a climate scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California who is contributing to the attribution effort.
“It’s well beyond what straightforward statistical analysis would suggest. It’s well beyond what climate models suggest,” he continued. “But it happened.” […]
Washington Post: “Plans to demolish unstable remains of condo tower accelerate ahead of potential tropical storm.”
The portion of Champlain Towers South left standing could be knocked down as early as Sunday. The death toll has risen to 24, with 124 still missing.
[…] The portion of the building left standing after the devastating collapse in Surfside could be demolished as early as Sunday, officials said.
Local leaders had said Friday that the process could take weeks because the structure is so fragile, but the emergence of Tropical Storm Elsa in the Caribbean prompted them to rethink their plans. Elsa, which was downgraded from a hurricane on Saturday, could swipe South Florida early next week, bringing harsh wind and rain that could create hazards for workers.
“The fear was that the hurricane may take the building down for us, and take it down in the wrong direction,” Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said. Demolishing the building quickly, he said, “will allow our rescue workers to pore all over the site without fear of any danger from falling debris or falling buildings.”
[…] Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava (D) initially said that engineers weren’t in a position to move swiftly on the demolition, telling reporters Friday evening that “it cannot be before this storm.”
But Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said Saturday that city leaders agreed to move faster after state engineers examined the building. The state government will cover the costs of the operation, DeSantis said, adding that the tower could be brought “straight down with some type of charge.” Timed properly, the demolition could allow crews to continue their search for victims with minimal disruptions, the governor said. […]
How the pop star’s father and a team of lawyers seized control of her life—and have held on to it for thirteen years.
On June 22nd, Britney Spears’s management team started getting nervous. Spears, who is thirty-nine, has spent the past thirteen years living under a conservatorship, a legal structure in which a person’s personal, economic, and legal decision-making power is ceded to others. Called a guardianship in most states, the arrangement is intended for people who cannot take care of themselves. Since the establishment of Spears’s conservatorship, she has released four albums, headlined a global tour that grossed a hundred and thirty-one million dollars, and performed for four years in a hit Las Vegas residency. Yet her conservators, who include her father, Jamie Spears, have controlled her spending, communications, and personal decisions.
In April, Spears had requested a hearing, in open court, to discuss the terms of the arrangement. It was scheduled for June 23rd. Members of Spears’s team, most of whom have had little or no direct contact with her for years, didn’t expect drastic changes to result. Two years earlier, in the midst of health struggles and pressure from Spears, Jamie had stepped down from his duties overseeing her personal life, and now the team thought that perhaps she wanted to remove him as the conservator of her financial affairs. Some of the team told reporters that they believed Spears liked the conservatorship arrangement, as long as her father wasn’t involved.
Running the business of Britney had become routine: every Thursday at noon, about ten people responsible for managing Spears’s legal and business affairs, public relations, and social media met to discuss merchandise deals, song-license requests, and Spears’s posts to Instagram and Twitter. (“This is how it works without her,” one member of the team said.) Spears, according to her management, typically writes the posts and submits them to CrowdSurf, a company employed to handle her social media, which then uploads them. In rare cases, posts that raise legal questions have been deemed too sensitive to upload. “She’s not supposed to discuss the conservatorship,” the team member said.
On the eve of the hearing, according both to a person close to Spears and to law enforcement in Ventura County, California, where she lives, Spears called 911 to report herself as a victim of conservatorship abuse. (Emergency calls in California are generally accessible to the public, but the county, citing an ongoing investigation, sealed the records of Spears’s call.) Members of Spears’s team began texting one another frantically. They were worried about what Spears might say the next day, and they discussed how to prepare in the event that she went rogue. In court on the 23rd, an attorney for the conservatorship urged the judge to clear the courtroom and seal the transcript of Spears’s testimony. Spears, calling into the hearing, objected. “Somebody’s done a good job at exploiting my life,” she said, adding, “I feel like it should be an open-court hearing—they should listen and hear what I have to say.” Then, for the first time in years, Spears spoke for herself, sounding lucid and furious, talking so fast that the judge interjected repeatedly to tell her to slow down, to allow for accurate transcription. “The people who did this to me should not get away,” Spears said. Addressing the judge directly, she added, “Ma’am, my dad, and anyone involved in this conservatorship, and my management, who played a huge role in punishing me when I said no—Ma’am, they should be in jail.”
For the next twenty minutes, Spears described how she had been isolated, medicated, financially exploited, and emotionally abused. She assigned harsh blame to the California legal system, which she said let it all happen. She added that she had tried to complain to the court before but had been ignored, which made her “feel like I was dead,” she said—“like I didn’t matter.” She wanted to share her story publicly, she said, “instead of it being a hush-hush secret to benefit all of them.” She added, “It concerns me I’ve been told I’m not allowed to expose the people who did this to me.” At one point, she told the court, “All I want is to own my money, for this to end, and for my boyfriend to drive me in his fucking car.”
Spears’s remarks were incendiary but, for people familiar with the creation and the functioning of her conservatorship, not surprising. Andrew Gallery, a photographer who worked for Spears in 2008, attended the hearing, watching the lawyers’ faces on a monitor. “As she spoke, I wanted to scream, and gasp, and shout ‘What the fuck is going on?’ ” he said. “But the lawyers had no reaction. They just sat there.”
The conservatorship was instituted by Spears’s family—in part out of real concerns about her mental health, people close to the family said. But the family was divided by money and fame, and Spears, in an underregulated part of the legal system, was stripped of her rights. She has fought for years to get them back.
As a pop star, Spears sustained a multinational industry of managers, agents, producers, lawyers, publicists, and assorted hangers-on. As the subject of the conservatorship, she has provided for the livelihood of even more lawyers and other court-appointed professionals. Jacqueline Butcher, a former friend of the Spears family who was present in court for the conservatorship’s creation, said she regrets the testimony that she offered to help secure it. “At the time, I thought we were helping,” she said. “And I wasn’t, and I helped a corrupt family seize all this control.” […]
Doofuses in law enforcement … especially in Idaho:
One of the clearest priorities for public officials that has emerged from the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection is the dire need to root far-right extremists out of the ranks of the nation’s law enforcement agencies—underscored by an FBI intelligence report warning that white supremacists are targeting such agencies for infiltration. More than anything, effectively confronting far-right terrorism and violence will require ensuring that law enforcement is not subverted by officers who sympathize with their frequently unhinged ideologies.
But in Boise, Idaho, local county commissioners considered appointing as sheriff a man named Steve Traubel, who is an ardent supporter of the far-right Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA), an organization that preaches that sheriffs are the supreme law of the land, accountable to no one. During his job interview this week as one of three finalists for the sheriff’s position, Traubel repeated the antisemitic theory that Jews “led the Bolshevik Revolution” and are to blame for creating the Soviet Union, as well as for the subsequent violence.
However, although Traubel had significant backing from GOP officials, the county commission on Friday chose someone else.
Thank goodness! That was a close call. Too close.
Traubel, a onetime Sheriff’s Office investigator who worked in the Ada County Prosecutor’s Office until 2019, and the other two candidates—Matt Clifford, a lieutenant in the Sheriff’s Office, and Mike Chilton, a Marine Corps veteran and onetime Sheriff’s Office employee—were interviewed Wednesday by the Ada County Commission. The three finalists were chosen by the Ada County Republican Central Committee […]
[…] Traubel’s background as a far-right extremist is well-established, and he was largely unapologetic about it in his interview. According to Boise State Public Radio, Traubel received more votes from GOP central-committee members than any other potential nominee, and county commissioners received several letters supporting Traubel from those party leaders.
[…] Traubel is also the author of a self-published book titled Red Badge: A veteran peace officer’s commentary on the Marxist subversion of American Law Enforcement & Culture, available on Amazon. According to its description, Traubel “pulls no punches as he delivers hard-hitting evidence that reveals how Marxists have repackaged themselves and are subverting the rule of law with social justice and an administrative state, superimposed over the constitution.”
It adds: “Controlling local police is essential to the success of the revolution. To do this the Marxist hammer of political correctness is reshaping a peace officer’s oath over the anvil of ignorance and fear. Five decades of federal indoctrination, intimidation and seduction have turned local police leadership into tools for Marxist social engineering.”
Traubel also wrote a screed for the far-right Gem State Patriot website claiming that former President Obama is “a laughable stooge of the tried-and-failed Marxist ideology” and claiming:
It is 2016! There is no longer black oppression in the United States. Police are good. Criminals are bad. It is not white versus black. It is police versus criminal. It is good versus evil. It is principles versus relativism. It is truth versus deception.
When Ada commissioners began grilling Traubel over these and other remarks on Wednesday, he unleashed a deluge of far-right conspiracist nonsense, much of it antisemitic and racist in nature, including his insistence that Jews were responsible for the Communist regime in Russia—noting that while Jews were victims in Nazi Germany, “they were the villain class in the Soviet Union” because they “led the Bolshevik revolution.”
Traubel’s claim not only is false, it was a common propaganda trope known as “Judeo-Bolshevism” promoted by the German Nazi regime in the years leading up to and including the Holocaust, claiming that Communism was a Jewish plot to undermine Germany. […]
Traubel, however, insisted Wednesday that the claim was real: “What we don’t often hear … is how many hundreds of thousands of people were killed (in the Soviet Union) and what group actually started that,” he said.
If the commission were to select Traubel, he would not be the first CSPOA-affiliated sheriff to lay claim to jurisdiction in a large urban area. That distinction belongs to former Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke of Wisconsin, the pro-Trump advocate who at one time was a Fox News regular.
As was the case with Clarke—who, after his tenure has ended, advocated for right-wing “patriots” to take to the streets in defiance of COVID-19 restrictions—having such a sheriff would play law enforcement in the hands of the same movement […] primarily responsible for the Jan. 6 insurrection.
When CSPOA sheriffs have taken office, the results are often disastrous. Just ask the residents of Grant County, Oregon, where one such sheriff has taken to ruling the county like his personal fiefdom.
Traubel openly embraced the CSPOA belief in the supremacy of the sheriff during the interview. He told commissioners that if, in his view, a “social justice mentality is pulling the reins on the police” in Boise during a protest, “if I get wind of that, I’m going in.” He indicated he believed the Boise Police officers would then be “under my command.”
[…] Other commissioners questioned comments and claims that Traubel has made on social media, including his racist (and false) assertions that Black men are responsible for “at least 50%” of all rapes—which he asserted he read in a book that was “factual and well-sourced,” but could not name—and other bigoted remarks, including the assertion that “Islam is the culture of death.”
[…]as the Center for Public Integrity explored in depth in a 2014 study of the CSPOA, the organization’s worldview is dangerously aligned with views held by domestic terrorists and violent white supremacists:
What’s unique about his group is not that it opposes gun controls but that its ambition is to encourage law enforcement officers to defy laws they decide themselves are illegal. On occasion, some of his group’s sheriffs have found themselves in curious agreement with members of the sovereign citizens’ movement, which was also founded on claimed rights of legal defiance and is said by the FBI to pose one of the most serious domestic terrorism threats.
[…] “It’s terrifying to me,” Justin Nix, a University of Louisville criminology professor who specializes in police fairness and legitimacy, told The Washington Post. “It’s not up to the police to decide what the law is going to be. They’re sworn to uphold the law. It’s not up to them to pick and choose.”
They’re sworn to uphold the law. It’s not up to them to pick and choose.
It’s an appealing ideology for rural populations and insular people who have come to believe that nothing and no one outside their community matters (especially those who don’t look and think like they do) and virulently resent “outsiders” telling them how to behave.
French far-right leader Marine Le Pen is facing stinging criticism for making her party too mainstream, dulling its extremist edge, and ignoring grassroots members, with voices from inside and outside warning this could cost her votes in next year’s presidential race.
The rumblings grew louder after the National Rally’s failure a week ago in regional elections, and come just ahead of this weekend’s party congress.
Le Pen is the anti-immigration party’s unquestioned boss, and her fortunes aren’t expected to change at the two-day event in the southwestern town of Perpignan, hosted by local Mayor Louis Aliot — Le Pen’s former companion and, above all, the party’s top performer in last year’s municipal elections. […]
[…]
National Rally candidates — including several who originally hailed from the mainstream right — failed in all 12[? 13] French regions during elections last Sunday […]. Polls had suggested the party, which has never headed a region, would be victorious in at least one [Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur (where I live!)]. Instead, it lost nearly a third of its regional councilors, in voting regarded as critical to planting local roots needed for the presidential race — a task that some say has been neglected.
It’s local elections that are the launch pad for the rocket that could take Marine Le Pen to the presidential palace, Romain Lopez, mayor of the small southwest town of Moissac, said in an interview. Today, we look like eternal seconds. That can … demobilize the National Rally electorate for the presidential elections. [and the problem with few-to-none le penazi votes / voters is…? –blf]
Some local representatives have resigned in disgust since the regional elections defeat, among them the delegate for the southern Herault area, Bruno Lerognon.
In a bitter letter to Le Pen, posted on Facebook, Lerognon blasted his boss’ strategy to lure voters from other parties as absurd. He said members of the party’s local federation were odiously treated — removed from running in the regional elections in favor of outsiders. Cronyism, had rotted the local far-right scene, he wrote, alluding to long-standing criticism of power clans within the National Rally whose voices are decisive. Le Pen replaced him a day later.
That’s hilarious! Teh le penazis are an authoritrain family cult. It’s always been about teh Le Pen family and their chosen few. So what is Lerogmoron whingeing about? Their doing exactly what they always have done.
[… similar head-spinning complaints from other loons…]
[… T]he party hierarchy is disconnected from its scarce, albeit vital local bases, Lopez said. National officials treat local representatives like children and impose everything, how to communicate, build a local campaign, [Moissac mayor] Lopez said. And by imposing everything from the top, you have a national strategy … disconnected from the reality of each town or region.
He is unsure whether the party will give local officials like himself speaking time, beyond his five minutes at a roundtable, but hopes to be heard. […]
Even more hilarity! First off, France itself has the centralised top-down disease in spades clubs and entire board games. So much so that the “regions” — what the recent elections were for — seem pointless to a lot of people. Second, teh le penazi’s are, again, an authoritarian family cult. Why would they bother to pay attention to Moissac’s mayor or voters, or consider them anything other than tithe-paying simpletonschildren? Nothing to say, move along, bow down low and get out of the way, here comes your führer’s pet moolsin-eating lion.
[… Right-wing activist Lauren] Witzke — the GOP’s 2020 Senate candidate in Delaware and a flat Earth, QAnon-believing conspiracy theorist with ties to white nationalists and antisemites — appeared on [Alex] Jones’ program to discuss the fact that Wells Fargo recently shut down her bank account. While the bank insists its decision had nothing to do with her political views, Witzke asserted that it was done in retaliation for her opposition to the Equality Act, proposed legislation that would add sexual orientation and gender identity protections to federal civil rights laws.
There is a war on Christians, Witzke said. They targeted me, and they made an example out of me because I’m an outspoken Christian who vocally opposes the Equality Act. … They’re trying to illegalize Jesus Christ and the Scripture and categorize it as hate speech.
What it will do is it will classify scripture, belief in traditional marriage, as hate speech, she continued. If an abortionist wants to make the decision to not perform an abortion, they can arrest that abortionist or that doctor or that nurse that chooses to take the biblical approach and change their lives. Children who struggle with gender identity — now it’s going to make it illegal for them to pursue therapy to change their mind. This is absolutely an attack on Christians. Even just quoting scripture will be classified as hate speech. … It is going to make Christianity a crime on a federal level.
We cannot allow this to go any further. We’re going to lose everything, Witzke warned. It’s gotten to the point now where we’re all going to end up in Kamala {Harris’} gulags unless we all stand up together and fight back as Christians.
[…] President Barack Obama said: “I have no doubt that, in the face of impossible odds, people who love their country can change it.” He observed that, “Loving your country shouldn’t just mean watching fireworks on the Fourth of July. Loving your country must mean accepting your responsibility to do your part to change it. If you do, your life will be richer, our country will be stronger.”
Obama was echoing the words of Rev. Martin Luther King, who declared, in a speech during the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955, “the great glory of American democracy is the right to protest for right.”
Trump would often fetishize the American flag, other American symbols, and the concept of patriotism broadly while displaying a shallow, ahistorical, and sometimes downright bizarre understanding of what they meant. At a speech to the American Legion in Cincinnati, Trump said, “We want young Americans to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.” He promised the war veterans that he would work “to strengthen respect for our flag.” He pledged that: “We will be united by our common culture, values and principles, becoming one American nation, one country under one constitution saluting one American flag — and always saluting it — the flag all of you helped to protect and preserve, that flag deserves respect.”
Once, at a campaign rally in Tampa, as his cult followers chanted “build that wall,” Trump interrupted his speech to give a bear hug to an American flag on the stage behind him — apparently as a way to demonstrate his patriotism.
“We want to make sure that anyone who seeks to join our country, shares our values and has the capacity to love our people,” Trump said at a rally at the Kennedy Center in 2017.
“We all salute the same great American flag,” Trump said in his 2017 inauguration address — a line he has repeated in many speeches since then.
To Trump and his followers, the flag was synonymous with “America First”: deporting undocumented immigrants and caging their children in detention centers, restricting visitors from Muslim countries, withdrawing from the Paris climate accord and other international agreements, and engaging in friendships with likeminded dictators.
[…] Progressives understand that people can disagree with their government and still love their country and its ideals. The flag, as a symbol of the nation, is not owned by the administration in power, but by the people. We battle over what it means, but all Americans — across the political spectrum — have an equal right to claim the flag as their own. […]
[…] By Sunday morning, “LoserPalooza” was trending on Twitter. While that may have had more to do with a plane that flew over the rally with the scrolling text “Loser-Palooza,” the phrase certainly seems fitting for a rally accomplishing little more than further inflating the ego of a man accused of inciting an attempted coup because he loss an election. […]
The reference is to Trump’s rally in Florida last night.
In addition to the LoserPalooza characterization of the rally, a lot of reporters noted that both Trump Senior and Trump Junior admitted to crimes:
[…] Trump [said that] a “15-year tax fraud scheme” and resulting 15 felony charges against the Trump Organization and CFO Allen Weisselberg were “prosecutorial misconduct.” Then, he made a reference to benefits of the crimes that seemed to be an admission of guilt. “And yet they go after good hard-working people for not paying taxes on a company car, a company car,” Trump said. “You didn’t pay tax on the car, or a company apartment. You used an apartment because you need an apartment because you have to travel too far where your house is. You didn’t pay tax.”
“Or education for your grandchildren. I don’t even know, do you have to put, does anybody know the answer to that stuff?”
His son, Donald Trump Jr., also seemed to implicate the former president in an interview on Fox News. “They say he didn’t pay taxes on $1.7 million worth of stuff over 16 years,” Donald Trump Jr. said. “So that’s to New York state 8% of that, $136,000. Half of that was because my father paid for his grandchildren’s school in New York City, so you take that out. It amounts to about five grand a month.” […]
ERIC TRUMP: “Well, these are employment perks. These are, you know, these are, a corporate car, which everybody has. I guarantee you there are people on this network that have corporate cars. I guarantee you there’s people at every company in the country that has corporate vehicles. This is what they’re going after. This isn’t a criminal matter. You know, it’s really interesting, Raymond. After the financial crisis, they didn’t go after a single person on Wall Street despite the fact that these people were literally, they took down the U.S. economy, but they’ll go after somebody after fringe employment benefits? Is that really what the DA is focused on as little girls are getting shot in the middle of Times Square? They’ll go after a corporate vehicle and a corporate apartment? Give me a break.”
Commentary:
[…] So my takeaway from that rant is “blah, blah, blah, blah, yes we committed this crime, blah, blah, blah. […]
As The Washington Post ‘s Philip Bump noted in the wake of the Trumps’ recent “we did this, but so what?” press junket, Don Jr., Big Papa, and Eric all basically said the same thing after the indictments were handed down: “This is a nothingburger! How dare you besmirch the sterling reputation of the Great and Powerful Trump!”
The problem? Going on TV to blab about your own legal peril is about the dumbest fucking thing you can do—according to the professionals, anyway. […]
I spoke with Michael Bachner, a criminal defense attorney in New York and a former prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. He was direct in his assessment.
“Generally speaking, in white collar cases — or frankly, in any type of litigation, particularly where there’s a high media visibility, as there is in a case like this — criminal lawyers will invariably, almost invariably tell their clients, ‘Do not make any statements regarding the case to the press,’ ” Bachner explained.
“ … The reason is fairly obvious: Statements made by people who can be construed as corporate representatives could be deemed as admissions of the corporation in the litigation.”
Bradley P. Moss:
Clearly no one at Trump Org has told the nepotism hires that commenting on the criminal matter is unwise. Run your mouth, Eric. Run your mouth.
Chris Hayes:
“These are corporate perks” means THEY ARE INCOME YOU HAVE TO DECLARE. Yes! This is widely known!
One message sent to Thomas Caldwell (Oath Keepers) read: “All members are in the tunnels under capital seal them in. Turn on gas”. A leader of the Oath Keepers, Thomas Caldwell, a former FBI section chief and Navy vet, was referred to as COMMANDER in communications prior to the attack on January 6th. […]
[…] Missouri reached 1,383 new cases on Thursday, as its average daily case count increased by 55 percent over two weeks. It ranks as the second in the country with the most new COVID-19 cases per capita at 15.1 per 100,000 people […]
Officials and experts have attributed the ongoing rise in cases and hospitalizations to the growing prevalence of the delta strain, which has exponentially risen to make up a majority of COVID-19 cases in the state in recent months.
[…] The St. Louis County and city health departments in response advised on Thursday for all people to wear a mask indoors where others’ vaccination statuses are unknown. Nearby Jefferson County released similar guidance, citing a 42 percent increase in cases with most among 10- to 19-year-olds.
[…] Arkansas’s COVID-19 case count reached its highest level since the winter on two consecutive days this week, with 686 and 700 new cases confirmed Wednesday and Thursday.
The surge has led to a rise in cases in almost every county, with the whole state seeing an 81 percent increase in its average daily cases in two weeks. Arkansas also ranks third for the most daily new cases per capita at 14.8 cases per 100,000 people.
State officials, including Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R), have blamed the delta strain and pleaded with residents to get their COVID-19 shots to boost the state’s vaccination rate, which stands at 43.4 percent of adults. […]
“We have to be concerned that this would be a trend that could continue, and if it does, it would appear that we may be in the beginning of the third surge of COVID-19 here in the state of Arkansas,” he said. […]
Nevada has seen its COVID-19 case count skyrocket since mid-June, reaching Missouri’s levels in a few weeks. The state documented 543 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday in a 48 percent increase in a week. […]
Nevada has climbed to the top state for most daily new cases per capita with 16 per 100,000 people.
The majority of Nevada’s new cases are being confirmed in Clark County, where Las Vegas is located. […]
In response, Gov. Steve Sisolak (D) announced the state would seek federal assistance to combat the escalation of COVID-19 cases after the White House declared it would send “surge teams” to hotspots nationwide. […]
Colorado is another state where the delta variant appears to be spreading, although the rises seem to be more limited to certain areas. […]
As a whole, Colorado is actually seeing a slight drop in overall COVID-19 cases with a 24 percent decrease in its average daily case count within two weeks.
But Mesa County, home to Grand Junction, has been struck by new COVID-19 cases in recent days with an average of 48 cases per day in a 34 percent increase from two weeks prior, according to Times data.
The county, which hosted thousands last weekend for the County Jam music festival, has seen its hospitals fill up with 98.3 percent of beds and 90.9 percent of ICU beds in use.
Mesa County officials issued a public health advisory on Wednesday, calling vaccination “critically important as case counts continue to be at a sustained increase in Mesa County and community transmission of the Delta variant is widespread.” […]
In recent weeks, Utah has also documented an increase in COVID-19 cases, hitting a daily average of 382 new cases this week representing a 33 percent increase in two weeks.
[…] Almost 1,110 delta cases have been identified in the Beehive State, with an estimated 70 percent of cases during the week of June 13 traced to the delta strain, according to state data. This is almost 10 times more than the number of delta cases confirmed in mid-June. […]
“I want to be very, very clear about what everyone of our staff has told me and that is this is not over,” she [Kencee Graves, the University of Utah associate chief medical officer for inpatient services] added. “Vaccine is important, is what we need to end this, but the COVID-19 pandemic is not over.”
[…] Biden recently unveiled a plan to address rising crime that involves using funds from his $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill to help support law enforcement and curb crime. The White House has subsequently tried to make the case that Republicans are the ones who support defunding the police for not voting for the rescue package. […]
Frederick Douglass, September 1848 … more of a real independence day:
The long and intimate, though by no means friendly, relation which unhappily subsisted between you [the asshole who held him in bondage] and myself, leads me to hope that you will easily account for the great liberty which I now take in addressing you in this open and public manner. The same fact may remove any disagreeable surprise which you may experience on again finding your name coupled with mine, in any other way than in an advertisement, accurately describing my person, and offering a large sum for my arrest. In thus dragging you again before the public, I am aware that I shall subject myself to no inconsiderable amount of censure. I shall probably be charged with an unwarrantable, if not a wanton and reckless disregard of the rights and properties of private life. There are those north as well as south who entertain a much higher respect for rights which are merely conventional, than they do for rights which are personal and essential. Not a few there are in our country, who, while they have no scruples against robbing the laborer of the hard earned results of his patient industry, will be shocked by the extremely indelicate manner of bringing your name before the public.
[ … ]
I have selected this day on which to address you, because it is the anniversary of my emancipation; and knowing no better way, I am led to this as the best mode of celebrating that truly important events. Just ten years ago this beautiful September morning, yon bright sun beheld me a slave—a poor degraded chattel—trembling at the sound of your voice, lamenting that I was a man, and wishing myself a brute. The hopes which I had treasured up for weeks of a safe and successful escape from your grasp, were powerfully confronted at this last hour by dark clouds of doubt and fear, making my person shake and my bosom to heave with the heavy contest between hope and fear. I have no words to describe to you the deep agony of soul which I experienced on that never-to-be-forgotten morning—for I left by daylight. I was making a leap in the dark. The probabilities, so far as I could by reason determine them, were stoutly against the undertaking. The preliminaries and precautions I had adopted previously, all worked badly. I was like one going to war without weapons—ten chances of defeat to one of victory. One in whom I had confided, and one who had promised me assistance, appalled by fear at the trial hour, deserted me, thus leaving the responsibility of success or failure solely with myself. You, sir, can never know my feelings. As I look back to them, I can scarcely realize that I have passed through a scene so trying.
{The salty missive asked Auld about the current condition of Douglass’s family, who were still in Auld’s “possession.” This included his three sisters, his only brother, and his 80-year-old grandmother.}
Have you sold them? or are they still in your possession? What has become of them? are they living or dead? And my dear old grandmother, whom you turned out like an old horse to die in the woods—is she still alive? Write and let me know all about them.
[…] What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sound of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants brass fronted impudence; your shout of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanks-givings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.
From David Fahrenthold and others, writing for The Washington Post:
In prosecutors’ telling, the Trump Organization provided a road map for its own indictment.
In documents filed in New York Supreme Court last week, prosecutors claimed that the company had spent 15 years paying its chief financial officer “off the books,” giving him cars, an apartment, tuition payments and cash that were hidden from income tax authorities.
But at the same time, according to allegations included in the indictment, the Trump Organization also was keeping internal spreadsheets that tallied the payments that were being hidden.
Prosecutors treated the spreadsheets as the accounting equivalent of a confession. They said the ledgers themselves showed the size of the fraud, estimating that Weisselberg alone had avoided paying more than $900,000 in taxes. And that concealment, they said, showed that the Trump Organization knew it was wrong.
“There is no clearer example of a company that should be held to criminal account,” Carey Dunne, a prosecutor with the office of the Manhattan district attorney, said as authorities charged the company and its CFO, Allen Weisselberg, with 15 felony counts.
[…] Will anyone else be charged? Has the investigation narrowed to tax evasion alone? What about other topics that prosecutors earlier indicated in court filings they were investigating?
[…] legal experts say, the spreadsheets described on Thursday — and the narrow tax-evasion case they support — could cast a long shadow over former president Donald Trump and his company.
“If you pay your employees under the table, a good rule of thumb is not to write it down,” said Daniel Hemel, a law professor at the University of Chicago.
Hemel said the ledger is likely to have made the decision to bring charges an easy one for Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. (D) and New York Attorney General Letitia James (D): “It’s a big amount of money. It’s blatant violation of the law. And it’s well-documented.”
Trump himself has not been charged in the case; in Thursday’s arraignment, Dunne said the company’s “former CEO” — possibly referring to Trump — had personally signed “many of the illegal compensation checks.” The charging documents said Weisselberg orchestrated the scheme with “others” from the company but did not say who.
Vance and James have said their investigations will continue in the meantime. But they have not said much about the direction of their further investigations. […]
The Biden administration issued an interim rule aimed at ending the evil ugly practice of surprise medical billing Thursday, following up on a law passed by Congress back in December. The new rule, released by the departments of Health and Human Services (HHS), Treasury, and Labor, will go into effect on January 1, 2022, and should largely eliminate surprise medical billing, at least for people with health insurance through their employers, or who buy individual plans on the private market.
So what the hell is surprise medical billing? It occurs when somebody uses medical services that would be covered by their insurance, but which involves some part of service that — surprise! — is actually out of network, and billed at an insanely high rate. For instance, someone might make sure their planned surgery is done at an in-network hospital, by an in-network surgeon, but — surprise! — the anesthesiologist that day is out of network, and the patient is billed for tens of thousands of dollars. This practice has gotten much much worse as private equity firms have taken over American healthcare, because the whole point is to extract as much money as possible from patients, fairness be damned. […]
As part of last year’s big omnibus budget bill, Congress passed the “No Surprises Act,” which authorized HHS to enact rules to put the kibosh on surprise medical billing. The resulting 411-page rule still needs to go through a routine 60-day public comment period and other administrative steps, but it’s not likely to be modified much, because public support for reining in the practice is so strong. Let’s take a look at how this sucker will work!
Fierce Healthcare has the skinny. The rule will
ban any surprise billing for emergency services regardless of where they are provided, including if they are air medical services. Such services must be treated via an in-network basis.
Other provisions of the rule include banning out-of-network charges without advance notice, out-of-network charges for ancillary care and any out-of-network charge for cost-sharing for emergency and nonemergency services.
“Patient cost-sharing, such as co-insurance or a deductible, cannot be higher than if such services were provided by an in-network doctor, and any coinsurance or deductible must be based on in-network provider rates,” according to a release from HHS.
The rule would also forbid insurance plans from requiring prior authorization for emergency services, regardless of whether the policyholder goes to a hospital that’s in network or not, or whether the providers of the emergency services are in or out of network.
So if suddenly you are run over by a truck, you will no longer be expected to emerge from your concussed state and tell the EMTs to take you to an in-network hospital, or to call your health insurer’s call center to authorize treatment before they sew your leg back on. And even if an assistant surgeon scrubs in, you can’t be billed more than the co-pay you’d have to pay for in-network treatment.
The rules will also limit how much can be charged for air ambulance services in emergencies, another huge source of surprise billing.
Again, this is a hell of a big change, and will reduce one of the biggest drivers of medical costs in our god damned for-profit medical system. The Wall Street Journal explains just how big a problem it is:
Out-of-network charges have added to medical debt and rising out-of-pocket payments for consumers: An April 2021 study in the journal Health Affairs found that patients receiving a surprise out-of-network bill for emergency physician care paid more than 10 times as much as in-network emergency patients paid out-of-pocket. […]
Out-of-network charges from anesthesiologists, pathologists, radiologists and assistant surgeons increase spending by $40 billion annually, according to researchers at the Yale School of Public Health.
Additional rules are still in the offing, particularly when it comes to settling disputes between providers and insurers over who pays how much when there’s a dispute. That’s going to be contentious, because there’s a lot of money at stake. The big thing is that the Biden administration seems determined that, going forward, patients won’t be the ones getting soaked.
We still need huge reforms, like some kind of single-payer system that incorporates cost controls, as you’d find in Europe. But this is a huge change for the better.
Here’s a link to the July 5 Guardian coronavirus world liveblog.
From there:
Luxembourg’s prime minister Xavier Bettel remains in hospital with Covid
Luxembourg’s prime minister Xavier Bettel remains in hospital having been admitted yesterday following a positive Covid-19 test at the end of June, according to local media reports.
Reuters has sent a snap this morning reiterating that he was undergoing additional tests and would continue to remain under observation for 24 hours as a precaution.
Bettel took part in a two-day EU summit in Brussels at the end of June, where participants included Emmanuel Macron, Angela Merkel, Mario Draghi and other European leaders.
Reuters state that Luxembourg’s state ministry could not immediately be reached for further comment this morning.
Boris Johnson is to announce that the lifting of most remaining Covid-19 restrictions in England will go ahead on 19 July amid a backlash from government scientific advisers who have warned that doing so would be like building new “variant factories”.
Despite cases having risen to their highest level since January 2021, the prime minister is set to press ahead with the final stage of unlocking in two weeks.
In a Downing Street press conference on Monday afternoon, he is expected to announce that, with 86% of adults in the UK having had at least a first jab, the government will move from relying on legal curbs to control people’s behaviour to letting individuals make their own decisions.
…
The different approach to tackling Covid was supported by the health secretary, Sajid Javid, who claimed it would be impossible to eradicate the disease and that the country would have to “find ways to cope with it”, as with flu.
He also said the health arguments for opening up were “compelling” but conceded dangerous new variants could emerge that current vaccines were ineffective against.
…
Conservative MPs who were once more cautious have mostly been convinced the time is right for mass unlocking, with one saying it was becoming clear rising infections were “not remotely correlated” to hospitalisations or deaths so “we’ve just got to get on with it”. But another Tory figure warned “the science may become a second thought” after 19 July.
…
Concern is building among scientists about the new wave of infections in the UK and ministers’ determination to press on with unlocking.
Stephen Reicher, a professor at the University of St Andrews who is also a member of the government subcommittee advising on behavioural science, said: “It is frightening to have a ‘health’ secretary who still thinks Covid is flu. Who is unconcerned at levels of infection. Who doesn’t realise that those who do best for health also do best for the economy. Who wants to ditch all protections while only half of us are vaccinated.”
He added: “Above all, it is frightening to have a ‘health’ secretary who wants to make all protections a matter of personal choice when the key message of the pandemic is: this isn’t an ‘I’ thing, it’s a ‘we’ thing.”
…
A further 24,248 cases were reported in the UK on Sunday – up from 15,953 on the same day the previous week. There were a further 15 deaths.
The north-east of England recorded a particular surge in infections, with South Tyneside reporting a 195% increase in the seven days to 29 June, Gateshead a 142% increase and Sunderland a 131% increase. Only Oxford and Tamworth have recorded greater increases during this period, with all five areas having a prevalence of between 480 and 585 coronavirus cases per 100,000 people.
“Something weird is happening in the north-east, and it is a bit worrying,” said Christina Pagel, a professor of operational research at UCL. Not only were cases there rising rapidly, so were hospitalisations and the proportion of tests recording a positive result, she said.
Other scientists said the relaxation of many of the restrictions, while not risk-free, made sense.
…
Pressure is growing on ministers to decide whether to extend the vaccination programme to cover children, given the end of the summer holidays – a period that could be used to inoculate under-18s while they are out of school – is fast approaching.
Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, said everyone was “desperate” for restrictions to be eased but the government needed to increase sick pay for self-isolation and introduce ventilation support for buildings to help push cases down.
Letting the virus spread would only mean more pressure on the NHS and disruption to education, he said, calling on Javid to justify telling people to live with the virus by explaining “what level of mortality and cases of long Covid he considers acceptable”.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) has signed a budget into law containing a provision that grants medical professionals the right to refuse to perform procedures that they believe violate their religious or moral beliefs — which critics say could result in denying LGBTQ people treatment for medically necessary care.
Under the provision, health care workers, hospitals, and health insurance companies are allowed to refuse to provide, perform, or pay for specific medical procedures or services that violate their conscience “as informed by the moral, ethical, or religious beliefs or principles held by the practitioner, institution or payer.”…
Although DeWine used 14 different line-item vetoes on the budget, he declined to veto the medical conscience provision.
“I think we have to respect people’s rights and people’s ability to make those decisions,” DeWine told ABC affiliate News5Cleveland…
He also claimed that it will not lead to any discrimination.
“People are not going to be discriminated against in regards to medical care,” the governor said. “This is not a problem, has not been a problem, in the state of Ohio and I do not expect it to be a problem.”
He added that those denied certain procedures can always just seek out another provider.
[…]
The Human Rights Campaign denounced DeWine’s refusal to veto the provision.
“Today, Governor DeWine enshrined LGBTQ discrimination into law, threatening the medical well-being of more than 380,000 LGBTQ people in Ohio, one of the largest LGBTQ populations anywhere in the country,” Alphonso David, the president of HRC, said in a statement. “Because of his decision not to line-item veto the discriminatory language adding a medical refusal provision to the state budget, medical practitioners in Ohio can deny care or coverage for basic, medically-necessary, and potentially life-saving care to LGBTQ people simply because of who they are.”
[…] New 2020 voters
One in 4 voters in 2020, or 25%, had not voted in 2016. About 6% of those new 2020 voters turned out in 2018, spiking participation in that midterm election. And voters who turned out in 2018 after skipping the 2016 presidential election were about twice as likely to back Joe Biden over Donald Trump in 2020.
But the 19% of new voters who came out in 2020 after skipping both 2016 and the midterms divided up almost evenly among Biden and Trump, 49%-47%. However, what was most notable about that group of new 2020 voters was the age disparity, writes Pew:
Among those under age 30 who voted in 2020 but not in either of the two previous elections, Biden led 59% to 33%, while Trump won among new or irregular voters ages 30 and older by 55% to 42%. Younger voters also made up an outsize share of these voters: Those under age 30 made up 38% of new or irregular 2020 voters, though they represented just 15% of all 2020 voters.
Third party
Between 2016 and 2020, the electorate apparently got the memo that rolling the dice on a third-party candidate against Trump was effectively rolling the dice on democracy.
While 6% of 2016 voters cast a ballot for one of several third-party candidates, just 2% of the electorate voted third party in 2020. […]
Suburban voters
Biden made a solid nine-point gain with suburban voters, winning 54% of their vote compared to Hillary Clinton’s 45% share. […]
Latino voters
While Biden still won a 59% majority of Latino voters, Trump made double-digit gains among the demographic, winning 38% of them. In 2016, Clinton carried Latino voters 66%-28%.
One noteworthy feature of the 2020 election was the wide education gap among Hispanic voters. In 2020, Biden won college-educated Hispanic voters 69% to 30%. At the same time, Biden’s advantage over Trump among Hispanic voters who did not have a college degree was far narrower (55% to 41%). […] The higher one’s education level, the more likely one is to vote in a midterm election.
Men vs. women
In 2016, Trump won men by 11 points, but in 2020 they split almost even between Trump and Biden, 50%-48%, respectively. Women stayed roughly as loyal to Democrats in both presidential elections, with Biden garnering 55% to Clinton’s 54%, but Trump increased his share of the female vote by five points in 2020 compared to 2016, 44%-39%.
As has been previously reported, Biden made gains among white men while Trump increased his showing among white women.
[…] in 2016, Trump won a plurality of white women, but in 2020 he won a narrow majority. Trump won a majority of white men in both cycles, but Biden trimmed Trump’s margins in 2020 by nearly half. Overall, Trump’s losses among white men and gains among white women decreased the gender gap among white voters.
White noncollege voters
Biden gained five points among white voters with only some college or less, winning 33% to Clinton’s 28%, while Trump’s numbers stayed about the same at 65% in 2020 versus 64% in 2015.
“Lafayette Park is open again, the outer barriers to the White House are gone and all that remains is the main fence. Tourists are leaning up to it, taking photos. Anti-war and pro-weed protesters are around here doing their thing. Feels like the before time.”
[…] A new report paints a grim picture of segregation in America. Not only is the United States nowhere near a truly desegregated society, in the last 30 years residential segregation has actually gotten worse.
This might not be a surprise. But it always helps to have numbers.
A new study by the Othering & Belonging Institute of the University of California at Berkeley measures over 80% of American cities with more than 200,000 residents as being more segregated places to live in 2019 than they were in 1990. As reported by Time, what makes this study different is that it measures the racial integration of individual census tracts in comparison to their surrounding metropolitan areas. Cities may claim to have diverse populations, but individual neighborhoods may remain as segregated as they were a hundred years prior.
Many of the report’s findings are bleak:
• Of the 113 largest cities measured, only Colorado Springs and Port St. Lucie, Florida qualified as truly “integrated.”
• “83 percent of neighborhoods that were given poor ratings (or “redlined”) in the 1930s by a federal mortgage policy were as of 2010 highly segregated communities of color”
• “The most segregated regions are the Midwest and mid-Atlantic, followed by the West Coast.”
• “Southern states have lower overall levels of segregation, and the Mountain West and Plains states have the least.”
Many of the report’s findings demonstrate, yet again, the link between segregation, poverty, and opportunity. Children raised in integrated neighborhoods go on to earn more money as adults. Segregated Black neighborhoods have fully three times the poverty rate of segregated white neighborhoods.
The report goes into considerably more detail than that.
What is evident, then, is that whatever this nation might claim, the facts on the ground show that racial segregation is not only persisting, but getting worse. Three decades of halfhearted government programs to combat the aftereffects of “redlining” and other systemic policies of discrimination haven’t managed to stop the backslide, and any bleating about systemic racism being “over” in America can once again be dispensed with as insulting, farcical nonsense.
But what’s next? It’s not clear. The Biden administration is reinstating anti-discrimination rules gutted by the Trump team in the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and has signaled a more aggressive anti-segregation focus. That’s not likely to undo three decades of federal, state, and local failures, however. Especially not when a good chunk of the American population—that is, the racists—remains intent on sabotaging such programs rather than abiding them.
Among the things Donald Trump has claimed to know more about than any human being alive are drones, the economy, renewable energy (including the concomitant scourge of windmill cancer), the courts, trade, our political system, infrastructure (which he inexplicably punted away into the ether), and, of course, taxes.
In March 2016, Trump told a rally crowd, “I know more about taxes than any human being that God ever created.”
He repeated his boast in May 2016 during an interview with Good Morning America, saying, “I think nobody knows more about taxes than I do, maybe in the history of the world.”
So you’d think a world-renowned expert on taxes would know when and why you’re supposed to pay them. And whether you can give your employees $1.7 million in income, tax-free. I’m too dumb to do my own taxes, and I know you can’t do that.
[…] I know of at least one person who knows the answer to that stuff: Cy Vance.
Also, nice job confirming the criminal conspiracy there, Al Cornpone. Trump doesn’t even need his dopey sons to incriminate him. He can do the heavy lifting himself.
Apparently, Trump is doing his best to appeal to his throngs of blue-collar fans, who also hate paying tax on Mercedes-Benz leases, private school tuition, and Upper West Side Manhattan apartments. That’s the kind of message that really resonates in the Rust Belt. […]
“Florida is averaging 2,241 cases/day, a 55% increase over the last 14 days. That’s 17% of all cases in the US. Florida needs to surge its vaccine effort.”
The Delta variant is here. And as it continues its spread across the globe, the media has been in a frenzy. Last week, for instance, reports circulated about vaccinated individuals in Israel who became infected with the new variant. We saw headlines about the rise in COVID cases driven by Delta in the UK, and news of six vaccinated people dying of COVID in the Seychelles. Meanwhile, Los Angeles and the World Health Organization are advising the vaccinated to return to masking indoors.
The news, frankly, is scary—and confusing. Making matters worse, anti-vaccine groups, always the opportunists, have begun to weaponize the confusion for their own gain. Some of their claims are just flat-out wrong: One bit of disinformation making the rounds is that people who are vaccinated are at a higher risk of dying from COVID caused by the Delta variant—an unsubstantiated assertion that has been debunked. [Sheesh!]
Other anti-vaccine activists are exploiting statistics without important context. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s anti-vaccine group, Children’s Health Defense, issued a write-up about recent CDC data showing that about 4,115 fully vaccinated American patients who tested positive for COVID had been hospitalized or died of as of June 21. What the piece didn’t say is that more than 150 million people in the United States had been fully vaccinated at the time—making these “breakthrough infections” very, very rare. It also failed to mention that experts say breakthrough infections are expected, and that data indicates that most breakthrough cases are asymptomatic or mild.
To set the record straight—and hopefully, relieve some of your stress—I picked the brains of three experts: Dr. Shira Shafir, a professor and infectious disease epidemiologist UCLA’s Fielding School of Public Health, Dr. Monica Gandhi, a professor of medicine and an infectious disease physician at the University of California, San Francisco, and Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine and co-director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children’s Hospital.
While the Delta variant is worth taking seriously—it does spread more easily than the “ancestral strain” of SARS-CoV-2—they told me, there isn’t enough evidence that it is deadlier than other strains. Crucially, they emphasized that the vaccines are proving to be powerful tools against Delta and other variants of this virus. And those stories about breakthrough infections? They’re not as disastrous as the headlines may suggest (keep reading—more on that below).
Here are some takeaways from our conversations.
Vaccines are working.
Right now, the CDC estimates the Delta variant makes up about 25 percent of new COVID cases in the US. There are a few places in the country where infections are on the rise, but overall, “most of our hospitalizations across the United States are staying low,” Gandhi says, and continue to decline. “We’re at our lowest number of deaths, luckily, that we’ve ever had.” You can thank the vaccines for that.
[…] For the Delta variant specifically, we’re seeing a similar trend: Vaccines are preventing the worst infections. In the UK, where an estimated 95 percent of infections are with the Delta variant, hospitalizations have also stayed flat—despite a surge in cases. That’s good news, Gandhi says, because it means the vaccine is preventing severe illness. “That actually proves the rule that vaccines work,” she says. Similarly, in Israel, she notes, there have been zero COVID deaths in the last week. And preliminary data from Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, and Moderna indicate their vaccines do provide protection against the Delta variant.
In the United States, outbreaks caused by the Delta variant are likely to be clustered in areas with low vaccination rates.
[…] It’s “already starting” in the Ozarks, Hotez says. In southern Missouri, for instance, there is a “perfect storm” of low vaccination rates and a high percentage of the Delta variant. He predicts we’ll see a surge in cases in the South this summer, likely in red states like Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, with adult vaccination rates currently at 45 percent or fewer. “It’ll be of a different character,” he says, “because more of the older adults will be vaccinated. So the deaths won’t be as high. But,” he predicts, “we’ll see a lot of cases and a lot of hospitalizations.” […]
It’s unclear if we’ll need a booster shot for the Delta variant.
Again, so far, the data we have suggests our vaccines are highly protective against the Delta variant and other variants of concern. If the vaccine is shown to be less effective against this variant, booster shots may be an option to, well, boost our immunity. Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson are currently conducting clinical trials on the benefit of booster shots.
In short, we don’t know if booster shots will be recommended. […]
The more transmission there is, the higher the chance that another variant will emerge.
To state the obvious, our best option for combatting the Delta variant is our arsenal of available vaccines. As Gandhi notes, it’s “pretty amazing” that “months into mass vaccination, we’re still having 750,000 to a million Americans still get vaccinated every day.”
[…] “Even if we are fully vaccinated and all our lives are starting to go back to normal,” Shafir says, “COVID-19 is still a pandemic.” To see our way through this, she says, we need to minimize the chance of transmission “to the greatest extent possible.” The fewer cases there are, the less opportunity the virus has to evolve.
As she puts it, “The pandemic isn’t over anywhere until the pandemic is over everywhere.”
I live in a state where more than half the population seems determined to give variants a chance.
The death toll from a Florida condominium collapse rose to 27 on Monday, after three more bodies were recovered from the rubble.
The Associated Press reported that the three additional bodies were found after authorities resumed their search and rescue efforts following the demolition of the remaining part of the building, according to a fire official.
The families of the newly recovered victims have reportedly been notified. More than 120 people, however, still remain unaccounted for since the building collapsed in Surfside, Fla. on June 24.
Authorities demolished the remaining part of the Champlain Towers South on Sunday evening, out of concern that the standing part of the building could fall and injure crews below as Tropical Storm Elsa approaches the state. […]
[…] It sounds like Trump and Weisselberg were operating under the assumption that they’d never get caught. And as we’ve said, it’s possibly true they never would have, had Trump not decided to [ride] down that escalator in 2015 to destroy the world. But he did. And New York prosecutors are paying attention.
Just Security:
Suppose that your employer pays you monthly, through automatically deposited paychecks that end up being included on your annual W-2. But suppose that each month you could stop by the front office, request an envelope full of cash in unmarked bills, and have your W-2 reduced accordingly. So your true income would be the same as if you hadn’t stopped by, but you’d be reporting less salary. If your employer kept careful records of all the cash it gave you, and also still deducted it all, we would basically have this case.
Former President Trump has reportedly cut ties with his former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and has been annoyed with Giuliani’s requests for financial compensation in his efforts to overturn the election results.
LOL. Pathetic
An excerpt of “Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump Presidency” by Michael Wolff published in The Times of London on Monday documents Trump’s frustration over his fruitless attempts to challenge his loss to Joe Biden after the 2020 presidential election.
The excerpt adds to Giuliani’s reportedly unsuccessful attempts at getting paid for legal work amid Trump’s refusal to concede and falsehoods of a stolen election. […]
Giuliani reportedly has “gotten only the cold shoulder” when asking Trump for payment, and has been “cast out, cut off” by Trump’s family.
Wolff also reported that Trump has asked visitors of his Mar-a-Lago resort whether “they know any good lawyers” to help his long-shot efforts of overturning the election results.
Giuliani, who spearheaded the Trump campaign’s efforts to delegitimize the election process, is being investigated by the Justice Department into whether he violated foreign lobbying laws while working as Trump’s lawyer.
Last month, Giuliani’s license to practice law in New York was suspended as a result of his crusade to subvert the 2020 election on Trump’s behalf.
In its order, a New York appellate court stated that “there is uncontroverted evidence” that Giuliani “communicated demonstrably false and misleading statements to courts, lawmakers and the public at large” in his capacity as a lawyer to Trump and the Trump campaign.
“These false statements were made to improperly bolster respondent’s narrative that due to widespread voter fraud, victory in the 2020 United States presidential election was stolen from his client,” read a per curium decision from the court announcing the news.
“We conclude that respondent’s conduct immediately threatens the public interest and warrants interim suspension from the practice of law, pending further proceedings before the Attorney Grievance Committee (sometimes AGC or Committee).”
[…] Last week, Dominion [Dominion Voting Systems] pulled Giuliani into its lawsuit against Fox News […] Giuliani was issued a subpoena as part of the voting machine company’s defamation suit against the news network, requesting all documents related to his appearances on Fox News dating back to 2016. The subpoena also seeks any communications that Giuliani had with the network about the 2020 election and Dominion.
[…] Preston Padden, who worked under Murdoch for seven years, claimed in the Daily Beast that he’d spent the past nine nine months trying, “with increasing bluntness, to get Rupert to understand the real damage that Fox News is doing to America.”
“I failed, and it was arrogant and naïve to ever have thought that I could succeed,” Padden wrote. […]
Padden served as president of network distribution at Fox Broadcasting Company and was once described by The New York Times as Murdoch’s “chief in-house lobbyist” during the Clinton administration.
“But, in recent years things have gone badly off the tracks at Fox News,” Padden wrote Monday. “Fox News is no longer a truthful center-right news network.’ [No longer!?]
Padden laid out a bulleted list of societal ills to which he said the channel, and particularly its prime-time opinion programming, had contributed:
– the unnecessary deaths of many Americans by disparaging the wearing of life-saving COVID masks
– divisions in our society by stoking racial animus and fueling the totally false impression that Black Lives Matter and Antifa are engaged in nightly, life-threatening riots across the country
– the unnecessary deaths of many Americans by fueling hesitation and doubt about the efficacy and safety of life-saving COVID-19 vaccines [Fox News provided examples of pro-mask/vaccine on-air comments […] they were heavily outweighed by the negative comments of the highly rated primetime opinion hosts]
– former President Trump’s “Big Lie” that the election was stolen from him by providing a continuous platform for wild and false claims about the election—claims refuted by more than 60 judges, Republican State election officials, recounts in numerous States and Trump’s own Attorney General
– the Jan. 6, 2021, violent assault on the U.S. Capitol by continually promoting former President Trump’s “Stop The Steal” rally.
Millions of Americans believe “falsehoods” about the 2020 election, or about “left-wing protesters” purportedly being responsible for the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, “because they have been drilled into their minds, night after night, by Fox News,” Padden wrote.
“The greatest irony is that I don’t believe that most of the falsehoods on Fox News reflect Rupert Murdoch’s own views,” he added, noting among other things that Murdoch received a COVID-19 vaccine months ago and encouraged Padden to do the same.
What’s more, Padden wrote, “I believe that he thinks that former President Trump is an egomaniac who lost the election by turning off voters, especially suburban women, with his behavior.”
“I am at a loss to understand why he will not change course,” Padden concluded. “I can only guess that the destructive editorial policy of Fox News is driven by a deep-seated vein of anti-establishment/contrarian thinking in Rupert that, at age 90, is not going to change.
A social media platform launched by Jason Miller, former President Trump senior adviser, was hacked within hours of its release on Sunday.
“GETTR” is a Twitter-style app that advertises itself as “a non-bias social network for people all over the world.” […]
The accounts of the platform’s most popular users, mostly former Trump aides, were briefly hacked on the morning of its launch on July 4. Some of the accounts that were hacked include those belonging to Miller, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon and Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene (R-GA).
“The problem was detected and sealed in a matter of minutes, and all the intruder was able to accomplish was to change a few user names,” Miller said in an emailed statement to Reuters. […]
The launch of “GETTR” comes a month after Trump’s blog was shut down after a mere 29 days. The former president started his now-defunct blog after social media giants banned him from their platforms for violating anti-violence policies following the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection. The blog — where Trump sought refuge to post statements after social media giants banned him from their platforms for violating anti-violence policies — failed to amass a fraction of the tens of millions of followers he had on Facebook and Twitter, according to NBC News.
Trump, however, does not have a verified account on “GETTR.” In an interview with Fox News last week, Miller said he hopes the former president will become a user of the platform, but that Trump is exploring several options. Miller denied that the former president is funding “GETTR.” […]
Members of the white supremacist group Patriot Front marched in Philadelphia Saturday night, leading to scuffles with bystanders and, at one point, a quick retreat into rental box trucks.
Patriot Front is known for these sorts of events: Members mask up, scurry into town, set off some smoke bombs, wave flags bearing fascist symbols and then scurry away.
But theirs plans in Philadelphia were interrupted by heckling and the occasional shove from residents.
Photos from The Philadelphia Inquirer showed the group being confronted by locals and retreating to two rental box trucks, and separately exiting the trucks with their hands up after being stopped, and then briefly detained, by police. (Penske, the rental truck company the white supremacists were seen using, was none too happy about the situation.) The Inquirer reported that the men were searched by police and then released.
Law enforcement told ABC affiliate WPVI that none of the group were from Philadelphia.
“An NBC10 photographer had his cellphone taken from him by members of the group, before recovering it,” Local NBC affiliate WCAU reported.
“They started engaging with citizens of Philadelphia, who were none too happy about some of the things they were saying,” Philadelphia Police Office Michael Crum told WPVI. “Apparently, these males felt threatened, and at one point, somebody in their crowd threw a type of what we believe is a smoke bomb, to cover their retreat, and they literally ran away from the people of Philadelphia.” […]
I could spend some time today going through the latest Republican scandal, the last dumb thing said on Fox News, or the latest MyPillow Guy theory. Instead, I just wanted to point out something a bit different: Thanks to President Biden, we are now living in a very different America. An America where Americans can find themselves gathered around a BBQ for the Fourth of July, freely celebrating with family and friends. We now live in an America where the economy is coming back rather than cratering, an America where the vaccine is being dished out as fast as people will accept it.
The Fourth of July brings many of us together, with families using it for reunions or just a chance to catch up. President Trump’s inactions last year cost us hundreds of thousands of lives. Now, as the economy comes back, we’ve created some holes in our own economy, and we’ve created new chances for people who couldn’t otherwise survive under COVID-19. President Biden, though, has reached out to the American public and delivered something we deeply missed: competence. […]
We’ve learned something, America. We’ve learned what it means to stand tall and to be respected as a leader in the world again.
This Fourth of July, we have a lot to celebrate. Former President Obama has the ability to celebrate a nation in good hands—and a birthday.
For everyone else, we know there will be so much work ahead: a confrontational Senate, a Supreme Court that has turned hard to the right, and elections. Let me smile for just a bit about the fact that in a few months, President Biden has done more for average Americans than Trump did in four years.
Remember how Joe Biden, the president of the United States, set a goal of having 70 percent of Americans vaccinated by the Fourth of July, so that we could declare independence from this damned virus?
Yeah, um, well.
The country as a whole has fallen just short of the benchmark, with 67 percent of the over-18 population having received at least one dose of the inoculation. But 20 states have reached the high bar set by the president, with 70 percent of residents having gotten at least one vaccine dose, according to The New York Times. Those states include California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Washington. Puerto Rico, Guam, and Washington, D.C. have also achieved 70 percent vaccination.
Good job, 20 states, DC, Puerto Rico and Guam. The rest of you … Jesus, could you possibly grow up and get your fucking shots?
From what we saw this weekend, most people are pretty much back to normal when it comes to how they’re celebrating and enjoying life. And that’s great, if they’re vaccinated! Meanwhile, there is this new Delta variant of the coronavirus out there, that’s just insanely contagious and killing people. It’s apparently really bad in Missouri, which is notably not on the list above. Only blue states and territories are on the list above.
Know what’s interesting though? We read an article the other day about a super-spreader party in Australia where pretty much everybody got the Delta variant. Know who didn’t get it? The six people who were fully vaccinated. That’s just one anecdote, but if further studies bear that out, then maybe the current vaccines we have can help push us through the new variant, as well. Maybe so. On the other hand, maybe not. We just don’t know yet.
Unfortunately, there was other news this weekend about the great unwashed unvaccinated 33 percent. According to a new Washington Post/ABC News poll, 29 percent of Americans say they probably won’t get vaccinated. Twenty percent say definitely not. Thirty-eight percent of Republicans say definitely not, whereas only six percent of Democrats say that. […]
Ugh, the MyPillow guy keeps changing the date for when Donald Trump is going to make his glorious return to the presidency, and it’s just making it difficult to keep our calendar together.
The last time we checked in, Mike Lindell had rescheduled Trump’s phoenix rising moment for “fall.” Before that, it was just “August” in general, an idea he admitted he probably babbled into Trump’s addled brain, after it was reported that Trump thinks he’ll be president again in “August.” Regardless, on or around one of these time periods, or maybe at some other as-yet-undetermined time, Lindell has been promising that he’s going to have a “cyber symposium” and he’s going to show everybody his “packets,” and the Supreme Court will just spontaneously vote nine-zip to overturn the 2020 election. (On none of the dates Lindell has mentioned is the Supreme Court actually in session. We guess he thinks they’re just going to call an emergency meeting.)
[…] he’s now moved it back up from “fall” and put a specific date in August on it. It’s gonna be the 13th! That’s a Friday! It’s Friday the 13th! [video available at the link]
Mediaite with the transcript:
“The morning of August 13, it will be the talk of the world, going, ‘Hurry up! Let’s get this election pulled down,” he told Brannon Howse of Worldview Weekend Broadcast Network. “Let’s right the right. Let’s get these communists out, you know that have taken over.”
Hurry up! It’ll be the talk of the world!
According to media watchdog Patriot Takes, which flagged the clip on Twitter, Lindell also claimed, “there will be many down-ticket senators that will have different election results.”
He also said that “right now the biggest concern is getting this election pulled down” and that “Donald Trump won. It’s pretty simple, OK?”
Lindell now claims that the “cyber symposium” he’s been touting is going to happen August 10, 11 and 12. One America News had a whole thing the other day where he made this BIG ANNOUNCEMENT. He explained that “Everybody’s been goin’ MIKE! WHEN WHEN WHEN! WHEN ARE YOU GONNA HAVE THIS CYBER SYMPOSIUM?” He acknowledged that people were going to ask him where this alleged cyber symposium would be held, and said he was hoping to announce that on July 4. From what we can find, he did not make an announcement about the location on July 4.
[…] And if he forgets to announce a location, or if he moves the goalposts again, then that’s just his prerogative as a totally normal and sane person who doesn’t at all remind us of batshit end times prophets who keep changing the date of the end of the world every time their predictions fail to come to pass.
Maps are available at the link. The comparison between June 2018 and June 2021 is shocking.
[…] a huge swath of the West is becoming desert […]
Consider this: a new Greater Yellowstone Climate Assessment records temperatures in the Greater Yellowstone Area that have risen 2.3 degrees Fahrenheit (1.3 C) since 1950. More critically the region has lost a quarter of its annual snowfall. By the end of the century, the assessment projects, the snow level in the basin is going to be 10,000 feet. That means no more skiing at Jackson Hole in the Tetons. Moisture that does fall will be rain, which is fleeting. The entire region depends on annual snow pack—the stored water high in the mountains that melts slowly through spring and summer to keep rivers flowing, fish alive, grazing for wildlife and livestock, crops growing, and golf courses green.
The implications go far beyond the Greater Yellowstone region, however, because it’s the point where three major river basins of the western U.S. converge. The rivers of the Snake-Columbia basin, Green-Colorado basin, and Missouri River Basin all begin as snow the Montana and Wyoming Rockies. These are the rivers that are keeping the inland West arable. The six states of the Colorado River Compact—Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming (comprising the Upper Basin) and Arizona, California and Nevada (the Lower Basin)—are all in danger of losing that resource entirely. […]
The reality is climate change and global warming is not going to stop. The glaciers are not going to reform. Fire season will be a thing of the past for much of the West—there will always be wildfires, all year round. It means our policymakers have to get serious and fast about doing everything they can to at least slow it down.
But it also means that we have to fundamentally change how we think about water and how we think about drought. “We have to fundamentally change the mindset of the public, and the way we manage this resource,” Newsha Ajami, a hydrologist and the director of urban water policy at Stanford University’s Water in the West program, told High Country News two years ago when the situation was that much less dire. “And one of the ways you do it is, you have to change the terminologies that we use in dealing with water.”
The Colorado River Research Group has decided to use the term “aridification,” which they translate as “a transformation to a drier environment.” The idea of “drought” is temporary. The idea of aridification is the permanent new reality the West faces. Accepting that is critical not just for those of us who live in the West when we think about ripping out our lawns and planting xeriscape gardens. Or turning off the faucet while we brush or teeth or for the duration of our 20-second hand-washings. Or keeping a bucket in our showers to collect gray water. […]
Accepting that the entire West—including the newly baked Pacific Northwest coast—is arid, and is going to remain so for the foreseeable future, means accepting that we have to take action. It means we have to start holding our lawmakers and policymakers as accountable as ourselves.
After months of progress in the fight against Covid-19, cases are rising again as the highly contagious Delta variant spreads across the US.
States with below-average vaccination rates have almost triple the rate of new Covid-19 cases compared to states with above-average vaccination rates, according to new data from Johns Hopkins University.
As of Sunday, states with lower rates of vaccination reported an average of 6 new cases per 100,000 residents every day over the past week, according to Johns Hopkins.
States with higher vaccination rates reported an average of 2.2 new cases per 100,000 residents each day over the past week.
Arkansas, where less than 35% of residents were fully vaccinated Sunday, averaged 16 new cases per 100,000 residents every day over the past week, according to Johns Hopkins. That’s about five times the nationwide rate of new cases.
And Arkansas is one of 10 states where the rate of new cases jumped more than 25% over the past week compared to the previous week. Of those 10 states, all but one — Delaware — had below-average vaccination rates.
On the flip side, Vermont leads the country in vaccination rates, with 66% of its residents fully vaccinated.
Vermont also has the lowest rate of new Covid-19 cases — less than 1 per 100,000 residents each day over the past week, according to Johns Hopkins. That’s a decrease of nearly 16% from the previous week.
The gap in progress between highly vaccinated states and those lagging in vaccinations keeps growing.
Parts of the South, Southwest and Midwest are starting to see surges, said Dr. Jonathan Reiner, professor of medicine and surgery at George Washington University.
Florida is getting hit particularly hard, with about 17% of all new cases in the US being reported out of the Sunshine State, he said.
“People will continue to die until we vaccinate everybody,” Reiner said.
And for young people who don’t think they need to get vaccinated, Reiner said his hospital has seen plenty of young adults suffering from Covid-19 or complications of long Covid months after infection.
“What I would say to young people is that Covid-19 doesn’t have to kill you to wreck your life,” he said.
All 50 states and Washington, DC, have reported cases of the highly contagious Delta variant.
“We learned this virus, a variant of Covid, is highly transmissible — the most transmissible we’ve seen to date,” US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy said last week.
“This is, again, a serious threat and we are seeing it spread among unvaccinated people.”
The virus carries a cluster of mutations, including one known as L452R, that helps it infect human cells more easily.
The director-general of the World Health Organization has also said “Delta is the most transmissible of the variants identified so far.”
The current vaccines protect well against all the variants so far, but that could change at any moment. That’s why doctors and public health officials want more people to get vaccinated.
“The more we allow the virus to spread, the more opportunity the virus has to change,” the World Health Organization advised last month….
(The CNN article @ #407 has a map of vaccination progress by county, which is quite useful for understanding the distribution of vaccinations within states.)
Organisers have cancelled a Pride march in Georgia after far-right demonstrators stormed LGBTQ activists’ headquarters and attacked journalists in violence that the country’s prime minister appeared to blame on the event itself.
Video and photographs showed anti-gay protesters scaling a three-storey building to break into the headquarters of the Tbilisi Pride march in the Georgian capital, while elsewhere men with long beards in priests’ clothing punched and kicked journalists, with as many as 20 injured.
One journalist said he was beaten with a stick while others reported having their cameras and other equipment broken.
Irakli Garibashvili, the prime minister, on Monday appeared to claim the Pride organisers had provoked the violence, saying it was “unreasonable” to hold the demonstration in a public place that could lead to “civil confrontation”. Meanwhile, a member of parliament accused the “radical opposition” of sponsoring the pride events.
The organisers said later that the march would not be held. “War was declared against civil society and democratic values,” Tbilisi Pride said. “The actions of the government have clearly shown that they don’t want to perform its direct duty. The inaction of the executive power has put the health and lives of Georgian citizens in real danger.”
This is not the first time that violence has broken out over a pride march in Tbilisi, a city with a vibrant LGBTQ community that has also seen homophobic violence led by ultra-conservative politicians and Orthodox church leaders.
…
Despite counterprotests, the events had been held peacefully for the last several years, making Monday’s violence a sign of backsliding. “We are witnessing a major state failure,” Tabagari said on Monday.
I see that the county in which I live has gone from 29% vaccinated (where it seemed to be stuck for months) to 32% vaccinated. That’s still awfully low.
[…] Biden won the election, Trump didn’t concede, and we witnessed the entire “stolen election” debacle unfold, culminating in the shocking, can’t-be-unseen events of Jan. 6. Now, in June, I’m looking for some indication that any of these things had registered with my former high school class, specifically the ones who stuck around my hometown area all their lives. But nothing has changed. It’s still Trump, Trump, Trump, and more bullshit: COVID-hoax bullshit, anti-Kamala Harris bullshit, and stolen-election bullshit.
We have a reunion coming up in a couple weeks, but I honestly can’t get myself interested in going.
One of the more disturbing aspects about living through these profoundly strange times is seeing the extent to which millions of otherwise competent Americans willingly succumb to objectively outlandish right-wing propaganda. The most telling example of this was best demonstrated by the depressing spectacle of 70 million American voters so completely, thoroughly enthralled with Trump that they still believed (and believe to this day) another four years under his auspices would have been a swell thing for this country. This after the most deadly instance of domestic malfeasance in the nation’s history: Trump’s mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has killed 600,000 Americans to date.
But as we now know, the mass delusion (or more charitably, “denial of reality”) that metastasized for a huge chunk of the American electorate didn’t end with Donald Trump’s defeat in 2020. Instead, as the pandemic has waned, they’ve simply gravitated to another lie, the so-called “Big Lie” that the previous election itself was somehow fraudulent and stolen. Without missing a beat, millions of those same Americans have, nearly in lockstep, seamlessly adopted this new lie as the gospel truth.
And lately many of those have bought into another less important but equally ludicrous lie for good measure, the idea that the teaching of critical race theory, a rather obscure field of study normally limited to political science and Black studies programs in universities and law schools, somehow constitutes an existential threat to the Republic. It makes no difference that the vast majority of Republicans who ascribe to this newest lie could not even coherently explain what critical race theory actually is.
[…] We now see this distortion of our public discourse intruding, sometimes violently, on established norms of decency and civility; and we see its corrosive effect in our country’s institutions, as the gears of our government grind to a standstill under the onslaught of an endless barrage of polarizing propaganda, nearly all of it emanating from the right, chiefly by Fox News, with results to match.
The fact that this stream of inflammatory right-wing fiction now motivates vast numbers of Americans to countenance violence against their fellow citizens ought to make it the most pressing issue of our time, especially since its tentacles have now invaded the most critical aspect of American society: our aspirations as a fair and functioning democracy. Climate change may be a far more over-arching, existential threat but climate change can only be combated by a citizenry that resolves to cooperate in fighting it. It can’t be effectively addressed by a society riven by the threat of propaganda-fueled violence and stuck in endless cycles of induced polarization. [Good point.]
[…] We see these same propagandized individuals now harassing and threatening election officials, school boards, teachers, and their own representatives in Congress, robotically mouthing pure propaganda as if it had some relationship to truth. And we see the people they vote for—who presumably know better—parroting these lies as well […]
[…] the right’s embrace of violent rhetoric to further its propaganda-fueled grievances is now a routine feature of our politics, having been established as acceptable by Donald Trump from the early days of his 2016 campaign. Through constant repetition and by example, threatening violence is now viewed as a legitimate means for those on the right to achieve what they want. And almost all of that violence, implicit or explicit, is directed at people of color, Democrats, and liberals.
As Mark Danner, writing for the New York Review of Books, recently observed, this country has arrived at an inflection point, one in which a single spark could immediately inflame millions, thanks to the prevalence and ubiquity of right-wing propaganda:
[…] The right-wing media machine is already laying the groundwork for turning that spark into a conflagration. […]
While dehumanizing rhetoric has historically been blamed for leading to murderous, even genocidal impulses—in the Third Reich and Rwanda, for example—among populations targeted by such media, another equally, and possibly more important element is simple peer pressure.
Aliza Luft, an assistant professor of sociology at UCLA, points out that although the popular perception of genocidal actions committed by private citizens typically attributes such actions to media influence and political demagoguery, what really occurred in Nazi Germany (and much later, for example, in Rwanda) was a combination of such rhetoric with the overwhelming desire to be accepted by one’s social peers. […]
In an article written for the Social Science Research Council, titled “Dehumanization and the Normalization of Violence: It’s Not What You Think,” Luft notes that Browning’s and others’ prior work in examining the motivations of so-called “ordinary” Germans in perpetrating atrocities toward Jews and other targeted minorities in the Nazi state underscored the key role that social pressure toward conformity played in prompting what ultimately turned out to be genocide:
[…] middle-aged family men, responsible for murdering at least 83,000 Jews in Poland, killed more often because of peer pressure and a sense of obedience to authority than any profound commitment to anti-Semitism. […]
Which brings me back to my high school reunion.
First, I have a pretty good guess why most of these people voted for Trump in 2016, and why most if not all of them voted for him in 2020. Racism is certainly a factor, but I suspect for many of them their reasons had less to do with racism than abortion. […]
Beyond that, though, there is the huge element of peer pressure that comes from living in a relatively conservative area. Their social relationships are now wedded to toeing this line, and a break from that line risks being cast out of the club. Many of the men in particular are socially conditioned by friends and family alike into believing that voting for a Democrat is somehow “unmanly.” […]
But at this point, for me anyway, their rationale for voting the way they do is just a secondary issue. It’s the continued support for a transparent lie to try to negate the fact that their guy lost, that their viewpoint didn’t prevail—and the fact that they’re willing to ratify the Republican Party’s efforts to undermine our democratic institutions in furtherance of that lie—that effectively overshadows any respect, regard, or interest I have in exploring our so-called commonality. Whether that’s because they were too invested in whatever their pet issue was, whether it was their inability to resist the propaganda, in the end it makes little difference, because I’m not seeing any change of heart. In fact, it seems to be getting worse.
[…] Just like the voter suppression laws they champion, it disregards us as human beings. That’s what all this “voter fraud” and ”stolen election” nonsense ultimately amounts to, even if many Republicans don’t consciously perceive it that way.
[…] One of the most striking features of this post-election time period has been an utter silence among ordinary Republican voters as their representatives in state legislatures methodically proceed to disenfranchise their fellow Americans. There has been zero outcry among these people, zero protest, zero condemnation of these efforts. Only silence. At some point you realize that this silence is nothing but complicity. They’re silent because they approve of it.
And then you wonder: if they’re silent about this, what else will they be silent about?
“If you look at the number of deaths, about 99.2 percent of them are unvaccinated. About 0.8 percent are vaccinated. No vaccine is perfect. But when you talk about the avoidability of hospitalization and death, Chuck, it’s really sad and tragic that most all of these are avoidable and preventable,” Fauci told host Chuck Todd on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
He added, “I mean, obviously there are going to be some people, because of the variability among people and their response to vaccine, that you’ll see some who are vaccinated and still get into trouble and get hospitalized and die. But the overwhelming proportion of people who get into trouble are the unvaccinated. Which is the reason why we say this is really entirely avoidable and preventable.
More than 1,000 Afghan soldiers fled into neighboring Tajikistan early Monday to escape clashes with Taliban insurgents who have mounted an aggressive offensive as NATO forces withdraw, according to Tajik border officials.
Citing a statement from Tajikistan’s border authority, Tajik state-run news agency Khovar said Monday that 1,037 Afghan servicemen crossed the border from Afghanistan’s Badakhshan province “to save the lives of their personnel.”
Tajik President Emomali Rahmon later Monday ordered the mobilization of 20,000 reserve troops to the border, according to a statement on the presidency’s website. Tajik authorities have repeatedly said they will not interfere in internal Afghan matters.
The influx was the third wave of Afghan soldiers to flee into Tajikistan in recent days and the fifth in two weeks, bringing the total to nearly 1,600, according to the BBC.
[…] all but one of Badakhshan’s 28 districts have fallen into Taliban control while Faizabad, the provincial capital, is surrounded by the Taliban.
People “worry Taliban many enter the city at any moment,” he said. Afghan reinforcements arrived in Faizabad on Sunday night, he added.
The Taliban has been rapidly retaking territory across northern Afghanistan, including areas along the 500-mile border with Tajikistan. Thousands of militia members — including ethnic Tajiks in Afghanistan — and armed citizens have rushed to join Afghan forces to fight the insurgents.
[…] Aid agencies are also bracing for an influx of refugees into nearby countries — like Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkey — which for decades have hosted several million Afghan refugees and are warning that they are not equipped to take in more. […]
[…] Well over a year into the pandemic, false claims still swirl. Is it true that face masks reduce the flow of oxygen to the lungs and can cause cancer? Is the coronavirus a biological weapon created by China? What about the involvement of Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and George Soros? […]
Even now, after the death of half a million citizens, Brazilians are forwarding delirious claims that hospitals are empty and people are being buried alive to inflate coronavirus statistics. Last year, as daily deaths soared, stories about empty coffins and staged burials abounded. It’s almost as if Brazilians couldn’t — wouldn’t — accept that things could really be so bad and took refuge in paranoia, suspicion and conspiracy. In this, of course, they had a guide: Mr. Bolsonaro, at every turn, has sought to spread mischief and misinformation.
Perhaps this sounds familiar. After all, aren’t fake news and Covid denial global problems? But there’s something special about Brazil. An interdisciplinary group of Brazilian researchers found not only that the country has among the most false claims in the world — only India and the United States have more — but also that Brazil’s disinformation is remarkably isolated from other countries. This might be, the researchers conclude, “strong evidence that the country is distancing itself from the ongoing scientific debate.”
[…] In Brazil, some falsehoods have prevailed over common sense, and there’s nothing we can do about it. Every time you enter a supermarket, a store or even a doctor’s office, for example, someone will measure your temperature with a forehead thermometer — but will point it to your wrist. This is the crushing triumph of a fake news story that claimed infrared thermometers can damage the brain’s pineal gland.
If that’s official policy, you can imagine what goes on at home. My father, early in the pandemic, tentatively shared a video — “I wonder if it is true” — claiming that vinegar was better at stopping the virus than hand sanitizer. (I thought that at least we would be able to smell the denialists coming.) Another relative swore by gargling with salty water after attending social events because it supposedly prevents the virus from lodging in the mouth and then going down the lungs. Some Brazilians wondered whether the coronavirus could be treated with aspirin. Others avoided popping Bubble Wrap made in China, denying themselves one of life’s great pleasures, on the grounds it would release virus-ridden air.
For the past few months, rather predictably, misinformation about vaccines has proliferated: Apparently, vaccines can cause 10 types of cancer, infertility, autoimmune diseases, suicidal thoughts, heart attacks, allergic reactions, blindness and “homosexuality.” They could alter our genetic code. They come with a microchip (or nanobots) to collect our biometric data. […]
there are limits to Mr. Bolsonaro’s powers of suggestion. He might be able to make people believe in a miracle cure or lethal Bubble Wrap. But despite his best efforts, there’s one fact he cannot erase: The virus has taken the lives of over 520,000 Brazilians.
There’s a high bar for nonsensical Trump statements that actually grab my attention. But he seems to be now moving into what I guess we might call his Evita phase. Who talks like this? Who has this kind of messiah complex and who has supporters who don’t laugh when they hear this kind of faux biblical melodrama?
Seeing the record crowds of over 45,000 people in Ohio and Florida, waiting for days, standing in the pouring rain, they come from near and far. All they want is HOPE for their Great Country again. Their arms are outstretched, they cry over the Rigged Election—and the RINOs have no idea what this movement is all about. In fact, they are perhaps our biggest problem. We will never save our Country or be great again unless Republicans get TOUGH and get SMART!
We’re clearly beyond mere “sir” stories to a quasi biblical figure, traveling the land to give solace to a desperate people.
Indian officials said that thousands of people were given fake coronavirus vaccines at scam inoccuation drives, CNN reported on Monday.
CNN News affiliate News 18 reported that the scam vaccinations centers took place during late May and early June, with authorities beginning their investigation after some of the scam victims became suspicious of the vaccination certificates they got.
A resident told the news source that one of the fake vaccine drives took place at a housing society where they had to pay cash and no one got any symptoms.
Mumbai Police Department senior official Vishal Thakur told CNN that 12 fake vaccination sites had been held in the city, saying that the fake doctors were using saline water to inject their victims.
Thakur said that an estimated 2,500 people received fake vaccine shots with the organizers making $28,000 in charged fees, according to CNN.
This comes as India has battled the second wave of the virus, which infected millions of people and killed tens of thousands of others, for nearly three months.
Recently, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a centralized vaccine drive where the government will provide free vaccinations for citizens, CNN reported.
Thakur told CNN that they have arrested 14 people on suspicion of cheating, attempts at culpable homicide, criminal conspiracy, and other charges in the vaccination scam
“We have arrested doctors,” Thakur said. “They were using a hospital which was producing the fake certificates, vials, syringes.”
He’s been known in recent years as the “Trump of the Tropics”: Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s right-wing antics and authoritarian vision have positioned him as one of the world’s closest analogues for the former U.S. president.
This came into focus a couple of years ago in the White House’s Rose Garden, when Bolsonaro stood alongside Trump and denounced “fake news.” [Trump] gushed with pride soon after.
Two years later, as Reuters reported, there’s an eerily similar echo coming out of Brazil.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said on Thursday he would hand over power to whoever wins next year’s presidential election cleanly – but not if there is any fraud. His comments will do little to dispel the concerns of his critics, who fear that the far-right former army captain will not accept any election loss in next year’s vote.
The political dynamic will be painfully familiar to many U.S. voters: after his 2018 victory, Bolsonaro has peddled unsubstantiated allegations of election improprieties. With polls now showing the incumbent trailing, and the incumbent facing corruption allegations, Bolsonaro is letting the public know he’s committed to honoring the results of the election, but only if he’s satisfied that there was no “fraud.”
[…] a foundational goal of U.S. foreign policy used to be exporting our highest ideals. For generations, it’s been the underpinning of our approach to everything from trade to diplomacy. The more we interact with other nations, the more opportunity we have to introduce the world to principles such as civil liberties, human rights, the virtues of democracy, religious liberty, and the institutional importance of a free press.
But as Bolsonaro reminds us, Trump didn’t just draw inspiration from authoritarians, authoritarians also drew inspiration from Trump.
Postscript: Though international heads of state traditionally remain neutral in American presidential elections, it’s worth noting for context that last fall, Bolsonaro publicly declared his support for Trump and expressed an interest in attending the Republican’s inauguration.
It’s not just Georgia: Team Trump improperly pressured officials in Arizona about election certification, too.
It’s not easy to keep track of Donald Trump’s many legal troubles, but among the most interesting is the ongoing criminal probe in Georgia, where members of a grand jury are hearing evidence about the former president’s alleged efforts to intervene in the state’s vote count.
As regular readers know, Team Trump leaned heavily on Georgia officials in January, including a phone conversation in which the then-president told Georgia’s Republican secretary of state that he wanted someone to “find” enough votes to flip the state in Trump’s favor, the will of the voters be damned.
It was deeply scandalous misconduct, which may yet lead to charges. But as the Associated Press reported, what happened in Georgia was not an isolated incident.
Newly released records show the top Republicans in Arizona’s largest county dodged calls from Donald Trump and his allies in the aftermath of the 2020 election, as the then-president sought to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in key battleground states. The records — including voicemails and text messages — shed light on another state where Trump, his attorneys and others mounted a behind-the-scenes pressure campaign on Republican officials overseeing elections.
There’s a recording, for example, of Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chairman Clint Hickman receiving a call shortly before midnight in early January. “Hello, sir. This is the White House operator I was calling to let you know that the president’s available to take your call if you’re free,” the White House operator said in a voicemail. “If you could please give us a call back, sir, that’d be great. You have a good evening.”
Hickman dodged Trump’s outreach, understandably assuming that the then-president would engage in an improper lobbying campaign about changing election results.
“I had seen what occurred in Georgia and I was like, ‘I want no part of this madness and the only way I enter into this is I call the president back,'” Hickman said.
It wasn’t just Trump. Rudy Giuliani, in his capacity as the then-president’s lawyer, also made multiple calls to members of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors.
In Georgia, there’s incriminating evidence against Trump because Brad Raffensperger took the call and recorded the conversation. In contrast, Trump must’ve been frustrated when officials in Maricopa County dodged his calls, but all things considered, he has reason to be pleased there aren’t similar recordings out of Arizona right now.
The Biden administration in February was reportedly planning a review of U.S. military deportations as part of its rollback of the previous president’s anti-immigrant policies. Last Friday, officials formally announced their effort to bring back deported veterans, as well deported family members. By being able to return to the U.S., veterans will again be able to access the benefits they earned through their services, officials said.
“Together with our partner the Department of Veterans Affairs, we are committed to bringing back military service members, veterans, and their immediate family members who were unjustly removed and ensuring they receive the benefits to which they may be entitled,” said Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. “Today we are taking important steps to make that a reality.”
“As part of the DHS initiative, Secretary Mayorkas directed U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to immediately conduct a review of policies and practices to ensure that all eligible current and former noncitizen service members and the immediate families of military members are able to remain in or return to the United States, remove barriers to naturalization for those eligible, and improve access to immigration services,” a statement said.
[…] U.S. military veterans, as well as immediate family members, have disgracefully been deported under both Democratic and Republican administrations. Due to the federal government’s carelessness, it’s unknown exactly how many military veterans have been deported after serving their country. Some estimates say about 230 veterans; a June report released by Illinois Sen. (and veteran) Tammy Duckworth last month found 92 military deportations between 2013 and 2018.
[…] Rebollar Gomez during the previous administration “applied for a program that protects the parents of active military members but was denied,” the Los Angeles Times reported. “Immigration officials told her that she would have to leave, and on Jan. 2, 2020, she found herself sitting in El Chaparral plaza in Tijuana, calling her family to let them know that she had already been deported.”
[…] Now it’s time to do right by other deported veterans and their families. “It’s our responsibility to serve all veterans as well as they have served us—no matter who they are, where they are from, or the status of their citizenship,” Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough said. “Keeping that promise means ensuring that noncitizen service members, veterans, and their families are guaranteed a place in the country they swore an oath—and in many cases fought—to defend. We at VA are proud to work alongside DHS as to make that happen.”
Wonkette: “Pistol-Packing Loon Lauren Boebert Kicks Off Independence Day Holy War”
GOP sedition caucus member Rep. Lauren Boebert is desperate for attention. Colorado’s shame appeared at a July 4th rally with a pistol strapped to her hip, ranting about JESUS. It was weird.
The Stand for the Constitution group hosted a “freedom rally” right after Grand Junction’s Independence Day parade. Boebert was expected to ride on the Mesa County Republicans parade float, but she didn’t make it on time because she’d spent the previous evening basking in the presence of the mad MAGA king in Sarasota, Florida. About 150 people gathered on the Mesa County Courthouse lawn in 150 degree heat [only a slight exaggeration] waiting for Boebert to arrive. The heat stroke probably made her sound almost sensible.
“There are two nations created for God’s glory — Israel and the United States of America,” Boebert said. “We stand strongly with Israel.”
It was the Fourth of July, so what better time for Boebert to lie about the nation’s founding?
Boebert declared that the founders “had faith in God and each other” and “dared to go up against the King of England,” who we should mention was a delusional leader prone to unhinged outbursts. Boebert probably doesn’t know anyone like that.
“We will not back down until we have everything God has promised us,” Boebert said. “We are an army for everything that Jesus has purchased for us and our children, and our children’s children.”
Jesus didn’t pack heat, and he rejected the zealot’s call to raise an army. This is familiar fundamentalist claptrap but it never fails to make me sick. Jesus also advised his followers to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,” but Boebert warned her flock about the dangers of even listening to their many enemies: “Put a guard over your mouth when you’re tempted to agree with the enemy.” This is hardcore even for the Old Testament.
During her tent revival meeting, Boebert insisted that it’s “not a coincidence that Independence Day is on a Sunday this year,” and she was correct in the sense that the Fourth of July didn’t randomly fall on a Sunday. It’s an outcome of the Gregorian calendar, where the dates shift over one day each year. Boebert isn’t a smart person, but she compensates with extra rudeness and racism. She boasted about her pointless border trip last month with Donald Trump, who she claims is still “leading this nation.” (He’s not.)
“Then suddenly Kamala decides to go herself.”
Boebert is referring to Vice President Kamala Harris, who can go wherever she damn well pleases. She’s free, Black, and 21. Boebert is not Harris’s friend and definitely not a peer. If Boebert loved America as much as she claimed, she’d show appropriate respect for its elected officeholders, but she’s just leaning into Jim Crow etiquette. Harris has no rights she’s bound to respect. […]
When Boebert visited the border, she met up with Anthony Aguero, a reported “close ally of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene” who participated in January 6’s spontaneous tourist demonstration. Aguero hasn’t yet been charged with unlawful entry at the Capitol despite entering the Capitol unlawfully. The vice president didn’t pal around with insurrectionists during her trip, so she’s one up on Boebert.
Boebert false witnessed all over the crowd with sycophantic nonsense about how great Trump looks (he doesn’t) and that he didn’t age “20 years” like most presidents with a human soul who feel the weight and burden of their office.
“That is the anointment of God,” she said. [Yuck.]
[…] This actual member of Congress wound up her speech with some more seditious conspiracy about how President Joe Biden isn’t the real commander in chief.
“God is on the throne,” she said. “It doesn’t matter who is President; we serve the almighty King. Trump has not given up and he will not give up.”
Whatever, lady.
A book is probably like kryptonite to Boebert, but Thomas Jefferson himself strongly rejected the theocratic rule conservatives crave when he wrote in his final letter: “The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. These are grounds of hope for others—for ourselves let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.”
Wonkette: “GOP Just Can’t Decide How Much Democracy To Steal When It Redraws Congressional Districts”
If you live in a state that’s ever been controlled by Republicans during redistricting time, you likely know all about being gerrymandered into oblivion, to the point where a state that votes 45 percent Democratic in presidential races has four Democratic seats in Congress, while the Republicans have 12. [Ohio, for example.]
We just had a (probably messed up but not as bad as it could have been) census in 2020, so it’s redistrictin’ time again! Politico is out with a piece where Republicans are talking VERY OUT LOUD about how they just can’t decide how much democracy to steal this time. All of it? If they steal all of it, they are worried mean Democrats with their fancy lawyers will take them to court and get their maps thrown out. […]
Mostly at issue is whether to take districts that are now blue because they include cities with people in them, and divide those up all weird to dilute the votes of all those pesky people. This is the “cracking” half of the “pack and crack” strategy of partisan gerrymandering. In Kentucky, congressional Republicans are actually asking their state counterparts not to mess with the district of Democrat John Yarmuth, who represents Louisville. (Kentucky right now has six congressional districts, five of which are held by Republicans. President Joe Biden got 36 percent of the vote in Kentucky, whereas the old loser got 62 percent. Five out of six congressional districts is … more than 62 percent!)
“It’s been my experience in studying history that when you get real cute, you end up in a lawsuit — and you lose it. And then the courts redraw the lines,” said Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.). “So my advice would be to keep Louisville blue.” […]
“We got a hard lesson in that in North Carolina and Pennsylvania last time,” said Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), referencing two states who had GOP-drawn maps invalidated mid-decade by state courts. The new lines netted Democrats several House seats. “They stretched the rubber band too far.”
[…] the suburbs have gotten so much bluer, so it’s getting harder for Republicans to slice up democracy and take all the pieces for themselves. And the Democrats really do just have all these fuckin’ lawyers.
[…] So where else is this an issue? Apparently Nashville is the biggest one. As yr Tennessee Wonkette, let us tell you about this state, which has absolutely incredible blue cities, but just has soooooooo much rural whiteness that it’ll be a long while before we can compete like Georgia or North Carolina.
Tennessee has nine congressional districts. Exactly two of them — Memphis and Nashville — are repped by Democrats. Republicans have probably stolen about as much as they can from the Ninth district in Memphis, […] Should Republicans divide up Nashville’s pie and take all the pieces for themselves?
Of course, Tennessee is a state Trump won with 60 percent of the vote to Biden’s 37 percent. So again: Should Republicans steal the Fifth District so they can have 88.8 PERCENT of the congressional seats? […]
Of course, all of this is very interesting considering how much of Tennessee’s continued productive existence as a state is thanks to the blue voters of Nashville. Jim Cooper had WORDS:
In a terse interview outside the House chamber, Cooper said he believes that outcome is “probable” given the desire for the GOP to end Democrats’ narrow majority in Congress, which will shrink to three seats this summer. “Do the math.”
“Don’t be an innocent about this,” he said. “What’s to restrain them? They have a supermajority. There’s a three-vote difference here, and they’re going to obey Emily Post etiquette?”
Politico mentions a few other districts:
– KS-03, the Kansas City district currently repped by Democrat Sharice Davids. Kansas has four congressional districts, one of which is in Democratic hands. Should they slice up Davids’s district so the GOP can have ALL THE DISTRICTS? For the record, 41.5 percent of Kansans voted for Joe Biden.
– MO-05, on the Missouri side of Kansas City, which is repped by Democrat Emanuel Cleaver. Missouri has eight districts, and two are repped by Democrats. […] In Missouri, 41 percent of voters chose Joe Biden.
– Two of Indiana’s nine congressional districts are currently repped by Democrats. Maybe they could slice IN-01, which is Gary and other Indiana Chicago suburbs, and give it to Republicans? Like Missouri, almost 41 percent of Indiana voters chose Joe Biden.
[…] Of course, there are other logistical concerns here. In order to “crack” these Democratic cities apart, you’d be adding blue voters to strong Republican districts. And the way things are going, what would stop those blue voters from, you know, voting? Could seats that are currently blood red find themselves a bit pinker in an election year where Republicans are unpopular, which is all of them now?
[…] “There’s a scenario where you could have a year where you end up with a 5-3 makeup, as opposed to always a 6-2 map.”
Golly, what is a Republican democracy-stealer to do?
[…] Here’s a cool idea, because know what would be a cool idea? IF DEMOCRATS IN CONGRESS PASSED VOTING RIGHTS LEGISLATION BANNING PARTISAN GERRYMANDERING.
[…] it was discovered that back before Vance [author JD Vance] traded in his brain for a chance to compete for Republican elected office, he said some things about Dear Leader Trump that were decidedly wrongthink. And he is so sorry, so so sorry, so very so very so so so sooooooooooo sorry. Please, Mister Trump, can you ever forgive J.D. Vance?
He has come under fire for deleting tweets from 2016 that were unearthed by CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski — including one in which he said he was voting for Evan McMullin, and another calling Trump “reprehensible” because of his views toward “Immigrants, Muslims, etc.”
A recent Daily Beast column ran with the headline “Hypocrite’s Elegy: J.D. Vance Is an Avatar of GOP Corruption,” and Democrat Tim Ryan, who is vying for the Ohio Senate seat, tweeted: “.@JDVance1 and I have exactly one thing in common — neither of us voted for Donald Trump.”
Oh, the sins for which J.D. Vance must atone, if he ever wishes to be granted entrance into the kingdom. […]
Politico reports that Vance went to Mar-a-Lago to kneel before the Lord’s little gross feet and ask forgiveness, and that he asked Fox News viewers for their grace as well:
“Like a lot of people, I criticized Trump back in 2016,” Vance said. “And I ask folks not to judge me based on what I said in 2016, because I’ve been very open that I did say those critical things and I regret them, and I regret being wrong about the guy. I think he was a good president, I think he made a lot of good decisions for people, and I think he took a lot of flak.”
Vance added that he himself had been criticized for standing up for the former president’s voters and agenda, saying, “I think that’s the most important thing, is not what you said five years ago, but whether you’re willing to stand up and take the heat and take the hits for actually defending the interests of the American people.”
Oh, pitiful.
So this is what you have to do now if you want to participate in the authoritarian neo-fascist death cult that is the modern GOP. It’s funny to see Vance doing it, though, because weren’t we told that he was different? Wasn’t he supposed to be a very special snowflake messenger of the common man, who something something fake bootstraps shitty book shittier movie?
Of course, many have noted that if it’s Donald Trump’s endorsement J.D. Vance wants so badly, there’s this other guy in the Ohio GOP Senate race named Josh Mandel who’s been total garbage since the very beginning, who’s never had to fake it even a little bit. [video available at the link]
Good luck winning the favor of the worst human God ever created, who just happens to own the Republican party’s soul, when you’re competing with THAT, J.D. Vance.
Wonkette: “Donny Deutsch, Rich Asshole, Wants Shiftless Workers Back On The Plantation NOW”
[…] he’s a sexist, pompous, entitled creep who thinks he possesses insights that the masses deserve to hear daily.
Last week, on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Deutsch lamented the decline of Americans’ “work ethic,” as he sat comfortably in a room with the same interior design sense as the alien prison at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey. [video available at the link]
Has the American work ethic softened? Maybe a little too much coddling of employees going on… just saying 💪🏼
“Work ethic,” by the way, is a BS Puritan term that describes poor people performing backbreaking physical labor on behalf of rich assholes. Here’s what this rich asshole said:
I think post-pandemic people got used to staying at home.
To the extent that’s true, it doesn’t mean workers are lazy. Black women, for instance, reportedly feel far less stress working at home than in an office where they risk repeated exposure to people like Donny Deutsch. Remote work also provides needed flexibility for working mothers who shoulder the bulk of childcare obligations. People aren’t just lying on their couches binge-watching Loki instead of filing their TPS reports.
Deutsch referred to the supposed “Great Resignation,” where he claimed “something like 92 percent of Americans said they’re either considering changing their jobs or leaving their jobs, and I think we’ve gotten a little soft in the pandemic.” His insulting observation doesn’t logically follow: Employees who’ve gotten “soft” are arguably least likely to put themselves out there and find a better opportunity. As noted American thinker Homer Simpson once observed, lazy people don’t quit their jobs. They just “go in every day and do it really half-assed.”
A Monster.com survey revealed that people are considering leaving their jobs, but their motivations are the same as most disgruntled employees ever since Lucifer told God to shove it: Their current boss sucks. They feel unappreciated. Both of which might be because their employer wants them to report back to work immediately when they already upended their lives to work from home during a global pandemic. People moved into the suburbs because their homes had to serve as a combination grade school and office park. They aren’t jumping at the idea of an extra hour’s commute time just because their rich asshole boss is stuck in a lease. I’ve worked someplace where the rich assholes fired their entire New York City staff and moved operations to another state because they didn’t want to renew their extensive lease. No one questions the “work ethic” of rich assholes who put themselves first all damn day.
I love [what] James Gorman … the head of Morgan Stanley … said to his workers, “I’m not gonna give you the option” … if you feel OK going to a New York City restaurant, you can go back to work.
OK, those are two entirely separate issues. […] He’s also leading with the notion that his employees are all enjoying bottle service at fancy New York nightspots but are too shiftless to fight rush hour traffic for the privilege of working in a cubicle farm.
Gorman is yet another rich asshole. No one should work for him. He treats his workers like he needs a series of visits from three spirits. Deutsch also conflated “going back to work” with “working physically in the office.” It’s not the same thing, and Gorman isn’t offering any data that his business interests suffered as a direct result of remote work. He just expects his employees to rearrange their lives and in many cases give up a major benefit for … well, he apparently doesn’t have to give any reasons because he thinks he’s a 19th Century robber baron.
Deutsch went on to criticize the “new soft attitude of work from home, flexibility, what not.” No, asshole, recognizing that employees have lives isn’t a “soft attitude.” It’s how effective management retains staff. […]
They are already at work. Sitting in front of a computer screen and attending multiple Zoom meetings all day isn’t a vacation.
If I were still running a company today, I’d say, “Guess what, you’re coming back to work.”
And everyone would say, “Guess what, rich asshole, we quit.” […] the 13th Amendment is still mostly intact.
Donny Deutsch is worth an estimated $200 million, which he didn’t earn digging ditches. He joined his father’s advertising firm in 1983 and received total control of the company in 1989 after working his way up to “son.” Instead of lecturing working people, he should go fuck himself with his matching crystal lamps.
Death Toll in Florida Condo Collapse Rises to 32
More bodies were found in the wake of the demolition of the remaining half of the building in Surfside, Fla., over the weekend. But the approach of Tropical Storm Elsa complicated the search.
– More bodies are found, but rescuers have detected no signs of life in the rubble.
– Elsa’s strongest impacts on South Florida are expected by midday.
– Officials are still trying to confirm how many people were in the building when it collapsed.
– ‘Should we sell?’: After the collapse, Florida’s hot real estate market faces uncertainty.
New York Times: “How G.O.P. Laws in Montana Could Complicate Voting for Native American”
Restrictions passed by the Republican-led Montana Legislature could have stark effects on Native American reservations, where voting in person can mean a two-hour drive.
One week before the 2020 election, Laura Roundine had emergency open-heart surgery. She returned to her home on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation with blunt instructions: Don’t go anywhere while you recover, because if you get Covid-19, you’ll probably die.
That meant Ms. Roundine, 59, couldn’t vote in person as planned. Neither could her husband, lest he risk bringing the virus home. It wasn’t safe to go to the post office to vote by mail, and there is no home delivery here in Starr School — or on much of the reservation in northwestern Montana.
The couple’s saving grace was Renee LaPlant, a Blackfeet community organizer for the Native American advocacy group Western Native Voice, who ensured that their votes would count by shuttling applications and ballots back and forth between their home and a satellite election office in Browning, one of two on the roughly 2,300-square-mile reservation.
But under H.B. 530, a law passed this spring by the Republican-controlled State Legislature, that would not have been allowed. Western Native Voice pays its organizers, and paid ballot collection is now banned.
“It’s taking their rights from them, and they still have the right to vote,” Ms. Roundine said of fellow Blackfeet voters who can’t leave their homes. “I wouldn’t have wanted that to be taken from me.”
The ballot collection law is part of a nationwide push by Republican state legislators to rewrite election rules, and is similar to an Arizona law that the Supreme Court upheld on Thursday. In Montana — where Gov. Greg Gianforte, a Republican, was elected in November to replace Steve Bullock, a Democrat who had held veto power for eight years — the effects of that and a separate law eliminating same-day voter registration are likely to fall heavily on Native Americans, who make up about 7 percent of the state’s population.
It has been less than a century since Native Americans in the United States gained the right to vote by law, and they never attained the ability to do so easily in practice. New restrictions — ballot collection bans, earlier registration deadlines, stricter voter ID laws and more — are likely to make it harder, and the starkest consequences may be seen in places like Montana: sprawling, sparsely populated Western and Great Plains states where Native Americans have a history of playing decisive roles in close elections.
In 2018, Senator Jon Tester, a Democrat, won seven of eight Montana counties containing the headquarters of a federally recognized tribe and received 50.3 percent of the vote statewide, a result without which his party would not currently control the Senate. (One of the eight tribes wasn’t federally recognized at the time but is now.) In 2016, Mr. Bullock carried the same counties and won with 50.2 percent. Both times, Glacier County, which contains the bulk of the Blackfeet reservation, was the most Democratic in the state. […]
Former President Donald Trump claimed last week that a bunch of mail-in ballots were missing in Montana, the Missoula Current reports.
Said Trump: “In Montana, over 6 percent of a certain county’s mail-ballots are missing, evidence to prove that if they were legitimate or not, that they’re missing. All this evidence. Think of it, Montana. You know, a lot of mail-in ballots. Where you have mail-in ballots.”
But the Montana Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen (R) says it’s not true and that all ballots are accounted for.
A Washington Post report noted over the holiday weekend, “Across the country, as campaigns gear up for a handful of key races this year and the pivotal 2022 midterms, Republican candidates for state and federal offices are increasingly focused on the last election — running on the falsehood spread by Trump and his allies that the 2020 race was stolen from him.”
With the rising demands on the right to release or drop charges against the Jan 6th insurrectionists and seek retribution against the unnamed cop who shot Ashli Babbitt, Josh Kovensky has some important context about the mounting movement to valorize and make a martyr of Babbitt. Relatedly, Rep. Paul Gosar, Congress’s most prominent white nationalist and antisemite, calls for the unnamed officer to be charged for what he earlier termed Babbitt’s execution. This of course comes just days after the leader of the GOP, ex-President Donald Trump, suggested the unnamed officer should be lynched.
A few more points on Ashli Babbit.
As I’ve written before, Ashli Babbitt’s death was a tragedy. She didn’t deserve to di. But there is no question that the unknown Capitol Police office who shot her was totally justified in his decision to use lethal force in the situation. Indeed, he would have been negligent not have taken extreme measures under the circumstances. It was, frankly, borderline offensive when the DOJ announced that there was insufficient evidence to bring charges against the person, as though he had somehow skated by for lack of evidence. Lack of evidence may technically be the correct description. But the real conclusion should be justification.
Let’s remember the situation. The Capitol complex is being stormed by a pro-Trump insurrectionary mob set on overturning the results of the election through violence. At this point Capitol Police have lost control of the mob and are in the process of evacuating members of Congress to a secure location. The doors being smashed down are the entrance to the Speaker’s Lobby. On that afternoon that was the last barrier before the insurrectionists got into immediately physical proximity to members of Congress. That was the last line of defense. It’s just a few more yards once you’re past that door.
This is not only the lives of numerous Representatives, Senators and staffers. It’s also multiple members of the succession to the Presidency: the Vice President, the Speaker of the House, etc. So it’s numerous individual lives and the continuity of government itself.
The video footage we’ve all seen shows one officer inside the entrace way guarding the door. With his pistol visibly drawn and aimed at the insurrectionists beating on the door he repeatedly warns the mob banging on the door to come no further. At this point Babbitt breaks through the upper window panel on the door and is shot. The single shot proved fatal.
The foundational justification for the Capitol Police to have firearms is to protect Congress – individual lives and institution – and the orderly functioning of the United States government. This standoff clearly and immediately implicated both those core missions. Babbitt ignored repeated warnings and the visible threat of lethal force.
If Babbitt and those who would certainly have followed her had not been stopped but rushed the few yards to capture, kill or injure the Vice President, the leadership of Congress, numerous members we would be demanding an explanation for the inexplicable fact that no one had acted in such a critical moment, that no one would have used lethal force to prevent a massacre of the Congress.
We are so divided as a nation and it is so offensive to hear fellow traveler either defend or poo poo the insurrection that there is an understandable impulse to take some satisfaction in Babbitt’s death or say she deserved it. She didn’t. We don’t kill people for making terrible decisions or even for all but the very worst crimes. But was the shooting justified? Absolutely. It is almost mind-boggling to think otherwise.
Babbitt is no martyr. She was a deluded, sad person who was taken in by Donald Trump and the chorus of hucksters and crooks who surround him. She made a series of terrible decisions and it cost her her life.
Early on Monday, Breitbart News and Fox News put out a story that the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team “disrespected WWII veteran before send-off match.” How did the entire U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team accomplish this feat? According to the braintrust that is Fox News, the entire team “turned their backs” to a 98-year-old WWII veteran Pete DuPré, who was playing the national anthem on a harmonica, before the start of an Olympic “send-off” match against Mexico. Whoa! You would think that having a war veteran playing the national anthem would insulate the fragile flag of our country from the slings and arrows of liberal protests. The story, which sounded terrible, and frankly makes no sense as a form of protest, wasn’t true. At all. It was in fact 100% false. Another way to say that would be to say it was one hundred percent false, and a final way to write that would be to say it was a lie.
You see, when the national anthem plays, most sports team members do various things. Some mouth the words of the national anthem, some put their hands to their hearts, some people face a flag. In a stadium there are a lot of flags, and signs with flags on them. In fact, in virtually all modern stadiums there is no less than one enormous video screen that usually shows an image of said flag as the anthem plays. As U.S. Soccer Federation Chief Communications Officer Neil Buethe tried to explain to right-wing misinformation machine the Daily Caller, “Some of the players were simply looking at the flag flowing on a pole in the stadium in that direction. They were not looking away from Pete as he played the national anthem.”
Right-wing outlets, having gotten a boatload of clicks out of their incendiary claims, didn’t apologize for painting members of the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team as disrespectful ingrates. In fact, they strung out the lie they had created as long as possible, and then justified their lie by saying people believed the lie because it could have been true.
Former Acting Director of the United States National Intelligence under Trump Richard Grenell tweeted “Every woman on the Mexican Soccer Team faced the flag & sang the Mexican National anthem. Several woman on the U.S. Soccer team turned away from the US flag – while a 92 year old Veteran played the anthem on a harmonica. Why didn’t @USWNT show the women turning away?” This is the former director of National Intelligence? Grenell’s Twitter bio says he is an “imperfect follower of Christ.”
As CNN’s Daniel Dale covered very well, the evolution of how right-wing outlets tried to squeeze out their misinformation as it became more and more clear that their story was entirely bogus, shows the true scope of their dishonesty.
This “controversy” about the US Women’s National Team was entirely fabricated by right-wing figures. Some of the players turned to face the flag during the anthem (it’s located at one end of the stadium), while others looked forward like the veteran who was performing it. (1/3)
After running the baseless claim in a headline, Breitbart News ran an “update” that framed this as a he-said, she-said kind of thing — “US women’s soccer team denies claim” rather than “our story about the US women’s soccer team was bad.” (2/3)
Fox News also went with this “denies” framing.
To their credit, some on the right — even some who don’t have the best accuracy record, like Ryan Saavedra — made a genuine attempt to correct the phony narrative.
Right-wing site The Post Millennial ran an article saying US players were “DISGRACEFUL” for turning to the right during the anthem…
…then, when that nonsense was debunked, they changed the article to say *the other* players were “DISGRACEFUL” for *not* turning to the right.
Final tweet in this thread: some of the US players met the now-98-year-old veteran on a 2019 trip to Omaha Beach in Normandy.
Most importantly, the two players of color sort of called out in those images, happen to also be two members of the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team who were facing veteran DuPré. One might even wonder if conservatives’ misreading of this situation was a touch … racist?
Then, Tuesday morning, Fox News decided to cover the response, and instead of saying that reports were entirely wrong, Fox News host Dunderhead gave a wishy-washy response saying it’s hard to tell what happened, and while it seems like nothing at all happened, maybe it’s okay that right wingers are racist and have knee-jerk reactions to easily debunked and irrational conspiracy theories. Clay Travis, a conservative radio host, came on to explain that while the story was absolutely a lie: “I think that this is emblematic of where we are in sports now. Where a huge percentage of American sports fans totally think it’s believable” that this would happen.
He goes on to say that he watched the video and it was “a little bit confusing,” but “unfortunately,” that’s the perception. This perception, created entirely by the right, for the right, based on disinformation is definitely unfortunate. But let’s be clear on what Travis and Fox News are saying here. The original report, that the “entire” U.S. Women’s Soccer Team turned their back to, in some vague form of protest, a 98-year-old World War II veteran, was simply the result of confusion and oversensitive snowflake-type right-wing folks’ belief that such a thing can happen. […] the video, which you can watch below in under two minutes very clearly shows that this isn’t a thing that is happening at all.
Gotcha. The phrase “drink the Kool-Aid,” means to drink poison knowingly. It also means to drink down poison without critical thinking simply because someone told you to. While false stories like this one about the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team will not kill anybody, don’t fool yourself, it is poison.
[…] “Today I am issuing an Executive Order declaring a Disaster Emergency on gun violence. Gun violence is a public health crisis, and we must treat it like one,” Cuomo wrote in a tweet on Tuesday. “This declaration will allow us to give this crisis the full attention & resources it deserves.” […]
Cuomo shared the new plans Monday, which include police departments across the state providing data on where shootings take place, cracking down on where illegal guns are sold, and keeping guns out of the hands of those considered dangerous.
Cuomo also said that he partnered with local businesses to create a summer jobs program for at-risk youth, costing $57 million in an effort to create 21,000 jobs.
“We’re going to hire young people, train them, put them on the job, and then not just give them a job, but give them a good-paying career when they finished with school, so they know this is not just a stopgap,” Cuomo said. “You can be a carpenter, you can be an electrician, you can be a tradesman, you can have an entire future ahead of you.”
[…] the total cost of the new gun violence initiative will be $140 million.
The governor said he will sign two measures into law that will bar individuals with active warrants from purchasing firearms and barring officers who are responsible for misconduct in their department from moving to another. […]
The United Nations human rights chief said on Tuesday the situation in Myanmar has become a “multi-dimensional human rights catastrophe” and commended the civilians who have fought back since the military coup in February.
“People across the country continue peaceful protests despite the massive use of lethal force against them, including heavy weaponry. A civil disobedience movement has brought many military-controlled government structures to a standstill,” Michelle Bachele, the UN human rights chief, said, […]
Hundreds of people have been killed and thousands have been arrested amid the protests over the military coup.
The international community has put sanctions on the country and the U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution condemning Myanmar’s military.
Bachele said the international community must keep pressure on the military to support the civilians. […]
[…] over 230,000 people in Myanmar have been displaced due to the violence with more than six million estimated to be in need of food.
For some time now, the French track-and-trace app has been claiming that in my area of France, the Delta variant was essentially non-existent (even reporting 0 new cases at least once), whilst for France as-a-whole, it’s been growing rapidly (currently c.42%). That seemed increasingly weird. The historical trends data was also very weird: France as a whole had a rapidly increasing percentage of cases being Delta, whilst this area continued to be be less than 1%. This weirdness now appears to have been a bug in the app, server, or data: It now shows Delta is c.48% of cases in this area, and the historical data / trend is now more-or-less tracking the national data.
This morning was the weekly village outdoors market, and not only was almost everyone masked, almost all of the mask-wearers were actually wearing them properly! Very poor (mostly non-existent) social distancing however. Unfortunately, the app only gives percentage vaccinated for all of France (c.37%), so I can only guess at the local vaccination rate.
My second jab is tomorrow. No flying saucers have crashed on my magnetised arm yet, albeit the microchips are busily chirping away, trying to luring them within range. I did, however, have a pigeon collide with my head the other day… I’m Ok, unfortunately, so is the flying rat. (I can now add erratically piloted pigeons to the list of things my hat provides protection against, such as sun, rain, small asteroids, and most peas.)
blfsays
Ingenuity has now successfully flown nine times on Mars. Parts of the ninth flight were done at speed (5 metres per second), and it surveyed a sandy area impassible to the rover. The data is still being downloaded, but it used its colour camera for the survey, which is significant — it means software with a fix for the bug which caused the gyrating on the sixth flight was uploaded (the hypothesis was the very-CPU-intensive processing of the colour images is what caused a navigation image during the sixth flight to be dropped, so during the seventh and eight flights, there was no colour imagery). The sandy area it overflew, called Séítah, was not flat, which was an additional challenge for the navigation system, which is mainly designed for flat(er?) terrain.
Several eyewitness accounts revealed that the pageant featured involvement from every Democratic legislator except Joe Manchin (D-WV) who refused to participate if there were no Republican performers present.
Listening enraptured as the most powerful people in the world discussed their process, the United States Congress took a field trip to Goldman Sachs headquarters Thursday to learn about how laws get made. “I’ve always wondered how the government decides who is allowed to do what, so it’s really cool to hear how the people in charge make those decisions,” said Illinois representative Cheri Bustos […]. “I thought it would be boring, but all the stuff about weighing the impact on their bottom line versus the effects of potentially hurting their government tax handouts was really interesting. Plus, the building is so beautiful and modern. It makes me think that I should try and be an investment banker so I can help make these decisions one day.” At press time, the members of the field trip were treated to complimentary gift bags that included watches, vouchers for first-class flights, and $100,000 campaign donations.
There are a few stupid remarks by a host about meat-eating which are best ignored. Several other recent episodes are worthwhile, including “News Brief: The Casual Soft Eugenics of Self-Help ‘Friendscaping’ Content” and the ones about enemy epithets.
Between 2009 and 2014, an anti-homosexuality law circulating in the Ugandan parliament came to be the focus of a global conversation about queer rights. The law attracted attention for the draconian nature of its provisions and for the involvement of US evangelical Christian activists who were said to have lobbied for its passage. Focusing on the Ugandan case, Out of Time: The Queer Politics of Postcoloniality (Oxford UP, 2020) seeks to understand the encounters and entanglements across geopolitical divides that produce and contest contemporary queerphobias. It investigates the impact and memory of the colonial encounter on the politics of sexuality, the politics of religiosity of different Christian denominations, and the political economy of contemporary homophobic moral panics.
In addition, Out of Time places the Ugandan experience in conversation with contemporaneous developments in India and Britain–three locations that are yoked together by the experience of British imperialism and its afterlives. Intervening in a queer theoretical literature on temporality, Rahul Rao argues that time and space matter differently in the queer politics of postcolonial countries. By employing an intersectional analysis and drawing on a range of sources, Rao offers an original interpretation of why queerness mutates to become a metonym for categories such as nationality, religiosity, race, class, and caste. The book argues that these mutations reveal the deep grammars forged in the violence that founds and reproduces the social institutions in which queer difference struggles to make space for itself….
A former U.S.-trained Honduran military officer and businessman has been found guilty of plotting the assassination of Berta Cáceres, the award-winning Lenca land and water defender killed in 2016. The Honduran Supreme Court ruled unanimously that David Castillo, the former president of the hydroelectric corporation DESA, was a co-perpetrator in Cáceres’s murder. Cáceres was assassinated as she led the fight against the construction of DESA’s massive hydroelectric dam on a river in southwestern Honduras that is sacred to the Lenca people. Seven hired hitmen were convicted of her murder in 2018 and sentenced in 2019. Castillo’s conviction this week comes just days after Honduras marked the 12th anniversary of the 2009 U.S.-backed coup. “This is the first time in 12 years that we have seen any kind of justice in Honduras,” says Honduran scholar Suyapa Portillo Villeda, an associate professor at Pitzer College and the author of “Roots of Resistance: A Story of Gender, Race, and Labor on the North Coast of Honduras.”…
In Chile, an Indigenous Mapuche woman has been chosen to lead the rewriting of the country’s constitution. Elisa Loncón is a university professor and community advocate. She was picked by over half of the 155 delegates charged with drafting a new Chilean constitution that will replace the current document, created under the U.S.-backed dictator Augusto Pinochet. This is Loncón speaking Monday.
Elisa Loncón: “This convention today that I have the responsibility of presiding over will transform Chile, a plurinational Chile, an intercultural Chile, a Chile that does not go against the rights of women, the rights of citizens, a Chile that looks after Mother Earth, and a Chile that safeguards water against being dominated.”
A group of unidentified individuals attacked the private residence of Haitian President Jovenel [Moïse] overnight and shot him dead, Interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph said in a statement released Wednesday.
At around 1am on Wednesday July 7, a group of unidentified people, including some speaking Spanish, attacked the private residence of the president, mortally wounding the head of state. The First Lady suffered bullet injuries, said a statement released by Interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph’s office.
Joseph said he was now in charge of the country.
Condemning the “inhumane and barbaric act”, Joseph called for calm, saying the police and the country’s armed forces had taken control of the security situation.
Paris has passed the official alert level of 50 cases per 100,000 people as cases in France, after many weeks of decline, begin to rise again.
Although cases around France remain low, with a national incidence level of 24.1, the rise of cases in the capital has worried local health officials. […] In Paris the incidence rate has doubled in just a week, although it remains far below the incidence rate of 500 seen just before the partial lockdown in April and May this year.
Whilst the article doesn’t specifically say so, I presume the rise in cases in Paris is mostly due to the Delta variant. The incidence map indicates that, currently, only Paris in mainland France has more than 50 cases per 100,000 people.
On a national level, the delta variant now represents 30 percent of cases in France, although in the southern Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region [my region! –blf] this jumps to over 60 percent. Overall, case numbers seem to have plateaued and are now seeing a slight rise.
The track-and-trace app says about 42% and 48% respectively, albeit the data is four-ish days old. A rise from 48% to 60% seems plausible, but I wonder about the (implied) drop from 42% to 30% — something seems rather “off” there… maybe They™ were also attacked by magnetically-attracted pigeons?
Paris has passed the official alert level of 50 cases per 100,000 people as cases in France, after many weeks of decline, begin to rise again.
Although cases around France remain low, with a national incidence level of 24.1, the rise of cases in the capital has worried local health officials. […] In Paris the incidence rate has doubled in just a week, although it remains far below the incidence rate of 500 seen just before the partial lockdown in April and May this year.
Whilst the article doesn’t specifically say so, I presume the rise in cases in Paris is mostly due to the Delta variant. The incidence map indicates that, currently, only Paris in mainland France has more than 50 cases per 100,000 people.
On a national level, the delta variant now represents 30 percent of cases in France, although in the southern Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region [my region! –blf] this jumps to over 60 percent. Overall, case numbers seem to have plateaued and are now seeing a slight rise.
The track-and-trace app says about 42% and 48% respectively, albeit the data is four-ish days old. A rise from 48% to 60% seems plausible, but I wonder about the (implied) drop from 42% to 30% — something seems rather “off” there… maybe They™ were also attacked by magnetically-attracted pigeons?
Paris has passed the official alert level of 50 cases per 100,000 people as cases in France, after many weeks of decline, begin to rise again.
Although cases around France remain low, with a national incidence level of 24.1, the rise of cases in the capital has worried local health officials. […] In Paris the incidence rate has doubled in just a week, although it remains far below the incidence rate of 500 seen just before the partial lockdown in April and May this year.
Whilst the article doesn’t specifically say so, I presume the rise in cases in Paris is mostly due to the Delta variant. The incidence map(link redacted since I think it’s triggering poopyhead’s filter?) indicates that, currently, only Paris in mainland France has more than 50 cases per 100,000 people.
On a national level, the delta variant now represents 30 percent of cases in France, although in the southern Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region [my region! –blf] this jumps to over 60 percent. Overall, case numbers seem to have plateaued and are now seeing a slight rise.
The track-and-trace app says about 42% and 48% respectively, albeit the data is four-ish days old. A rise from 48% to 60% seems plausible, but I wonder about the (implied) drop from 42% to 30% — something seems rather “off” there… maybe They™ were also attacked by magnetically-attracted pigeons?
A French court has ordered Twitter to give activists full access to all its documents relating to efforts to combat racism, sexism and other forms of hate speech on the social network.
Six anti-discrimination groups had taken Twitter to court in France last year, accusing the US social media giant of “long-term and persistent” failures in blocking hateful comments from the site.
The Paris court ordered Twitter to grant the campaign groups full access to all documents relating to the company’s efforts to combat hate speech since May 2020. The ruling applies to Twitter’s global operation, not just France.
Twitter must hand over “all administrative, contractual, technical or commercial documents” detailing the resources it has assigned to fighting homophobic, racist and sexist discourse on the site, as well as “condoning crimes against humanity”.
The San Francisco-based company was given two months to comply with the ruling, which also said it must reveal how many moderators it employs in France to examine posts flagged as hateful, and data on the posts they process.
The ruling was welcomed by the Union of French Jewish Students (UEJF), one of the groups that had taken the social media giant to court.
“Twitter will finally have to take responsibility, stop equivocating and put ethics before profit and international expansion,” the UEJF said in a statement on its website.
[…]
The inquiry for human trafficking was opened after the women, most from the Philippines, filed complaints of modern-day slavery in October 2019[!], said the prosecutors’ office in the suburb city of Nanterre.
The maids had been recruited in Saudi Arabia and worked for the prince and his family there and in France, a source close to the case, who refused to be named, added.
They apparently escaped during a trip to France, the source said.
[…]
Prosecutors heard testimony from the women a few weeks ago, but the prince has yet to be questioned since he is not currently in France, the source said.
Some were required to sleep on the floor and barely had time to eat while serving the prince’s four children, according to Le Parisien newspaper.
“The first time we met with them, what was shocking to see was that they were hungry. They were crying with hunger,” Anick Fougeroux, head of the NGO, SOS Esclaves (“Slaves”), told the paper.
Here’s a link to the July 7 Guardian coronavirus world liveblog.
From there:
India’s health minister has resigned ahead of a cabinet reshuffle, according to government officials. Prime minister Narendra Modi hopes the move will reinvigorate his government, which has come under fire after presiding over surging infections and deaths in recent months.
Reuters quotes a source close to the health minister as saying that Harsh Vardhan paid the “political price” for the administration’s failure to stymie the pandemic’s staggering second wave. More than 400,000 people in India have died since the onset of the pandemic and experts say this figure is a serious underestimate of the true scale.
Modi’s government has faced its harshest criticism in years as cases and deaths skyrocketed in April and May, peaking at 414,188 and overwhelming hospitals and crematoriums.
Cases are rising in the 22 countries of the eastern Mediterranean region due to limited vaccination, the spread of the Delta variant and increased travel, the World Health Organization has warned. Increasing infection levels follow two months of maintained decline.
The region, which includes the Gulf, North African and Asian countries, has registered over 11 million infections and over 220,000 deaths since last year, according to the Associated Press. Iran has been the worst-hit country in the region, followed by Iraq.
Ahmed Al-Mandhari, regional director of the WHO, said more than 500 million vaccine doses are still needed to vaccinate at least 40% of the population of east Mediterranean countries by the end of the year – a goal which we are “far, far behind” reaching.
The highly transmissible Delta variant has been identified in 13 of the 22 countries, and a spike in cases is expected as the summer proceeds and countries try to keep their economies active.
The head of the World Health Organization’s emergencies programme has urged countries to exercise extreme caution when ending restrictions and opening up their economies so as “not to lose the gains you have made”.
Dr Michael Ryan said the idea of allowing more people to be infected has already been proven to be “moral emptiness and epidemiological stupidity”.
The WHO also called on countries either considering or starting to vaccinate 12- to 15-year-old children to instead donate those doses to the Covax facility to help inoculate healthcare workers and the elderly in low-income countries. The programme has so far shipped over 95 million vaccines to 134 participants.
Only 1% of people in low-income countries have been given at least one dose, according to Our World in Data.
blfsays
I just got back from having my second jab and today’s first beer. Sadly, nothing unusual happened — I didn’t stick to the side of the bus, which wasn’t attacked by kamikaze pigeons, and one eejit mouth-breathing passenger was using their mask as a chin strap to keep their mouth shut, making me wonder how they actually breathed during the (fortunately short) ride.
It has been one week since the New York City Board of Elections botched the release of preliminary ranked-choice tabulations from the city’s mayoral race, counting 135,000 dummy ballots that employees had used to test a computer system and then failed to delete. […]
Some supporters of former President Donald Trump quickly suggested that the results of the 2020 election might also have been miscounted. […] Trump himself suggested falsely that the true results would never be known.
“We had an election where we did much better than we did the first time, and amazingly, we lost,” Trump said at an event in Texas on Wednesday. “Check out the New York election today, by the way. They just realized it’s a disaster. They’re unable to count the votes. Did you see it? It just came out. They’re missing 135,000 votes. They put 135,000 make-believe votes in. Our elections are a disaster.”
[…] There is some irony to the possibility that the Board of Elections’ error will undermine trust in election results, because it in fact revealed how quickly an actual miscount becomes apparent.
The error should never have happened, but once it did, it “was detected less than hours after it was displayed,” said David J. Becker, the executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research. “And yet we are now eight months past the November election, and the losing presidential candidate still can’t present any evidence of any systematic fraud anywhere in the country. They’ve had eight months, and the New York City problem was detected in probably eight minutes.”
More to the point, because there is a paper trail, “we will get the right winner, just like we got the right winner in 2020,” Becker said. “If we can look at the facts of what happened and say, ‘Here’s where the structure failed, here’s where personnel failed, here’s where the process failed,’ and try to reform that, that would be a very, very positive outcome. But even with those mistakes, we’re going to get the correct answer.”
* Over the holiday weekend, Russian hackers allegedly breached a Republican National Committee contractor, though party officials said in a written statement yesterday that none of RNC’s data had been accessed.
* It was close, but Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams eked out a one-point victory over Kathryn Garcia in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary. Adams will face Republican radio host Curtis Sliwa in the fall, and the Democrat is heavily favored to prevail.
* Disgraced former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens (R) may be worrying Republican officials with his U.S. Senate campaign, but he’s nevertheless picked up a major financial ally. Politico reports that billionaire Richard Uihlein “is donating $2.5 million to a newly formed, pro-Greitens super PAC.”
* Carla Sands (R), the former U.S. ambassador to Denmark and a former actor, launched a Republican U.S. Senate campaign in Pennsylvania this week. Her kickoff video emphasizing her Donald Trump ties and her “Christian values.” [Yikes!]
* Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) committed over the holiday weekend to supporting Trump as the next Speaker of the House if Republicans win a majority in next year’s midterm elections. If you’re thinking this might soon appear in a DCCC fundraising pitch, you’re not alone.
[…]
* And because our politics can be quite dumb, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) suggested last night that Democrats should change the name of their party because of Dixiecrats’ record from generations past.
Ron Johnson’s nonsense about COVID is dangerous, but it appears his hostility toward climate science is just as jarring.
When it comes to dangerous misinformation about the pandemic, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) is among the most ridiculous politicians in the country. It was just last week when the editorial board of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel was pushed over the edge by Johnson’s hostility toward science, describing the Republican senator as “the most irresponsible representative of Wisconsin citizens since the infamous Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy in the 1950s,” and telling the people of Wisconsin that Johnson “is not fit to be your senator.”
But the GOP senator’s anti-science posture isn’t limited to COVID-19. CNN reported yesterday:
“I don’t know about you guys, but I think climate change is — as Lord Monckton said — bulls**t,” the Wisconsin Republican said, without uttering the expletive but mouthing it, and referring to British conservative climate change denier Lord Christopher Monckton. “By the way, it is.”
The report added that Johnson went on to argue that “there are more and more scientists” writing books “just laying this to waste” and questioned why the US was focused on the climate crisis at all. The senator also described efforts to combat the climate crisis as “a self-inflicted wound.”
Remember, Senate Republicans thought it’d be a good idea to put this guy in charge of the Senate Homeland Security Committee — for six years.
At this point, we could talk about Johnson having recently denied being a climate denier, and the degree to which this latest report proves otherwise. We could also talk about his years of willful ignorance on the subject, including Johnson’s claim during his first campaign that global warming could be blamed on “sunspots.” (He bolstered his theory at the time with nonsense about Greenland.) We could even kick around how weird it is to see Johnson become such a weird, reactionary conservative as his second term nears its end.
But what first came to mind after seeing the senator’s climate comments was a New York Times report from last week that noted, “[M]any in the Republican Party are coming to terms with what polls have been saying for years: independents, suburban voters and especially young Republicans are worried about climate change and want the government to take action.”
As a result, a growing number of GOP officials are at least pretending to take the climate crisis seriously, if for no other reason than they don’t want to keep alienating reality-based voters.
And yet, there’s Ron Johnson, flaunting his indifference toward evidence, data, and science. Some in the Republican Party may be coming to terms with the fact that voters expect the GOP to take climate change seriously, but Wisconsin’s confused senior senator clearly doesn’t care.
Chip Roy says he wants to curtail governing for a year and a half, create “chaos,” and make sure Congress can’t “get stuff done.” Dems should believe him.
On the surface, Rep. Chip Roy (R-Tex.) might seem like the kind of House Republican who might be willing to work with his Democratic colleagues. It’s not because he’s moderate — he’s actually a very conservative Texas Republican who used to work as an aide to Sen. Ted Cruz — but Roy has occasionally displayed some independence from his party.
For example, Roy argued in January that Donald Trump engaged in impeachable misconduct. He also called on scandal-plagued Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) to resign. When most House Republicans voted against certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election, the GOP congressman was not among them.
With this in mind, some might be tempted to look at Roy as a principled conservative who’d be willing to play a constructive role in bipartisan governance. That would be a ridiculous mistake. The Washington Post reported this morning:
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Tex.), in a recently surfaced video, said that he considers it the “job” of House Republicans to slow down the Democratic agenda on infrastructure and other priorities until after next year’s elections and that his party will benefit from “18 more months of chaos and the inability to get stuff done.”
In context, the congressman was speaking late last month to a group called Patriot Voices and was specifically discussing his opposition to infrastructure proposals. “Honestly, right now, for the next 18 months, our job is to do everything we can to slow all of that down to get to December of 2022, and then get in there and lead,” the Texan was recorded saying. […] “I actually say, ‘Thank the Lord, 18 more months of chaos and the inability to get stuff done.’ That’s what we want.”
[…] there’s simply no point in clutching one’s pearls and decrying GOP members of Congress as being “partisan.” We already knew that. It’s not a secret. Republicans are making no meaningful effort to suggest otherwise.
What matters is the lingering belief that Democrats should commit to bipartisan governance anyway.
[…] The lesson is hardly subtle: GOP officials aren’t interested in bipartisan governance. They don’t intend to work in good faith toward consensus solutions. Their goal is to derail the policymaking process until they can control it.
[…] Republicans don’t want to help Biden succeed; they want to make every possible effort to ensure his failure. They don’t want to govern; they’re desperate to stop Democrats from governing. With Biden in the Oval Office, the GOP has a guiding principle: Failure is the goal.
[…] Democrats have the procedural wherewithal to advance popular and important legislation without Republicans’ input, and GOP lawmakers are practically inviting the governing majority to do exactly that.
Not a single member of my party voted for [the American Rescue Plan]. So, you’re going to get a lot more money. I didn’t vote for it. But you’re going to get a lot more money. Cities and counties in Kentucky will get close to [$700 million] or $800 million. If you add up the total amount that will come into our state, $4 billion.
Commentary:
[…] the Republican’s pitch was oddly self-defeating: McConnell seemed to be congratulating his home state for the resources they’ll soon benefit from, while simultaneously insisting that if it were up to him, the resources wouldn’t exist.
McConnell didn’t literally tell Kentucky voters they should thank Democrats for the relief money, but that was the apparent subtext.
[…] at the same time, McConnell also ended up discrediting his own nonsense about state aid representing a “blue-state bailout.” The Republican leader who told the public last year to believe the funding wouldn’t benefit red states is the same Republican leader who also told the public this year that Kentucky — a state Biden lost by 26 points — is benefiting greatly from the Democrats’ policy.
One thing that was clear to me when I read about Trump’s comments on the January 6th defendants and the death of Ashli Babbitt is that he intends to make these claims and demands centerpieces of the 2022 midterm election. For Trump everything is the Big Lie, everything is the “rigged election”, which is to say everything is payback, retribution and grievance about being driven from power.
The insurrectionists are the symbols of grievance, the symbols of absolute loyalty to Trump […] They are inseparable from the Big Lie because they are the ones who fought hardest to vindicate Trump’s claims. They are the new version of the brawny but tearful factory workers calling Trump “Sir” and asking for justice. They are, in a word, the new mascots of Trumpism.
As we noted yesterday, the conventional GOP, while all publicly loyal to Trump, wants to ignore and coverup January 6th as much as possible. They have a conventional culture war and big government campaign they are eager to run. Meanwhile Speaker Nancy Pelosi has finally created her select investigative committee to investigate January 6th. She has designed it to really investigate. Democrats have both profound civic and patriotic reasons to get to the bottom of what happened on January 6th as well as obvious political interests.
The investigation commences now. It will get down to work properly toward the end of the summer. It will need to be prepared to conclude by the end of 2022 for the simple reason that if the Democrats lose power in the House – more likely than not – it will be brought to a speedy conclusion. All of which tells us that the January 6th investigation is more or less coterminous in time with the 2022 election cycle. And this confirms that the two efforts – Trump’s and the select committee’s – are on a common trajectory and certain to collide.
[…] Mike DeWine, the Republican governor of Ohio, signed a bill into law that could allow physicians, insurers, hospitals, and other medical professionals to deny (or refuse to pay for) medical services if they object on the basis of their moral, religious, or ethical beliefs. This medical refusal language was nestled into a 2,400-page 2022-2023 $74 billion budget bill as a last-minute provision, as reported by LGBTQ+ outlet them. Though DeWine did veto some line items in the bill, he left that one included.
The language in the state budget bill allows medical professionals to “decline to perform, participate in, or pay for any health care service which violates the practitioner’s, institution’s, or payer’s conscience.” This refusal clause is “limited to conscience-based objections to a particular health care service.” Medical professionals would still be on the hook for providing “all appropriate” services other than the one in conflict with their beliefs “until another medical practitioner or facility is available.” […]
Back in 2017, the inventor of Godwin’s Law made it clear that comparing someone to a Nazi, when they are literally praising the Nazis, was completely fair. That came during the sequence of events at Charlottesville, where violent white supremacists marched to Nazi slogans and one deliberately killed peaceful protester Heather Heyer by driving over her with a car. Trump responded by a statement that there were “very fine people” on both sides of the events, then he doubled-down on that statement with a claim that he was only supporting the Nazis in their praise for a Confederate traitor.
In 2018, Trump explicitly declared “I’m a nationalist,” in a speech ostensibly supporting Ted Cruz. “You know, they have a word,” said Trump. “It sort of became old-fashioned. It’s called a nationalist. And I say really, we’re not supposed to use that word. You know what I am? I am a nationalist. Use that word.”
So when The Guardian published an account on Wednesday morning that Trump defended Hitler while on a tour of military cemeteries … is anyone really surprised?
“Hitler,” said Trump, “did a lot of good things.”
The pro-Hitler conversation is from a book titled Frankly, We Did Win This Election, by Wall Street Journal reported Michael Bender which is slated for publication next week.
On a 2018 trip to Europe in which Trump was supposed to go to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery to visit the graves of 2,300 Americans who were killed in World War I. Instead, Trump skipped out on the visit, claiming it was too wet, while actually telling his advisers that he had no interest in visiting soldiers who were “losers” and “suckers.”
During that visit, it was already known that then chief of staff John Kelly tried to explain the circumstances of both World Wars, to explain how the actions taken after World War I contributed to the rise of the Nazis, and how that led to World War II. Trump responded by saying that he “didn’t understand why the United States would intervene on the side of the Allies.”
But the new book goes further. It explains how Trump “stunned” Kelly by his direct support of Hitler. Kelly reputedly told Trump that he was wrong to support the murderous dictator, “but Trump was undeterred.” Instead, Trump kept pointing to how Hitler supposedly pulled Germany out of its economic slump in the 1930s.
Kelly grew explicit in his response, telling Trump, “you cannot ever say anything supportive of Adolf Hitler. You just can’t.”
Even then, Trump continued to praise Hitler. Kelly was reportedly disgusted, as were other unnamed senior officials who described Trump’s “understanding of slavery, Jim Crow, or the Black experience in general post-civil war as vague to nonexistent.”
Trump has, according to Kelly, a “stunning disregard for history.” […]
A federal judge has ruled that the U.S. Air Force is mostly responsible for a former serviceman killing more than two dozen people at a Texas church in 2017 because it failed to submit his criminal history into a database, which should have prevented him from purchasing firearms.
U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez in San Antonio wrote in a ruling signed Wednesday that the Air Force was “60% responsible” for the deaths and injuries at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs. The attack remains the worst mass shooting in Texas history.
Devin Kelley had served nearly five years in the Air Force before being discharged in 2014 for bad conduct, after he was convicted of assaulting a former wife and stepson, cracking the child’s skull. The Air Force has publicly acknowledged that the felony conviction for domestic violence, had it been put into the FBI database, could have prevented Kelley from buying guns from licensed firearms dealers, and also from possessing body armor. […]
“A federal judge has ruled that the U.S. Air Force is mostly responsible for a former serviceman killing more than two dozen people at a Texas church in 2017 …” Well, that’s a strange way to put it. Odd emphasis on blaming someone else for what Devin Kelley did, but I do see where they are going with this. The armed forces should submit criminal histories to a database so as to limit the accessibility of firearms to people convicted of domestic violence.
Press secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday that the White House would not “take any of our health and medical advice from Marjorie Taylor Greene,” a response to the Georgia lawmaker’s remark a day earlier comparing the Biden administration’s vaccination campaign to Nazis.
Greene (R-Ga.) on Tuesday called efforts by the Biden White House to vaccinate more Americans against Covid-19 a “political tool” and likened the administration’s on-the-ground push to a Nazi paramilitary wing, the Sturmabteilung, often referred to as “brownshirts.” […]
[…] Biden on Tuesday encouraged Americans to stand up to the “lies” that led to the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and called for a bipartisan effort to investigate what happened on Jan. 6.
“This was not dissent. It was disorder,” Biden said in a statement on the six-month anniversary of the attack. “It posed an existential crisis and a test of whether our democracy could survive—a sad reminder that there is nothing guaranteed about our democracy.”
Biden went on to say that “democracy did prevail” despite the shocking event — where a mob of then-President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol building during the counting of the Electoral College votes — and that “we must all continue the work to protect and preserve it.”
He also seemed to call for a continuation of efforts to investigate the Jan. 6 attack, encouraging people to “stand up to” the lies and extremism that led to it, “including determining what happened so that we can remember it and not bury it hoping we forget.” […]
[…] Prosecutors detailed the finding in a court document for Robert Morss, who was arrested on June 11 at his home in Glenshaw, Pa.
The government argued that Morss should be detained from court pending trial.
According to the court filing dated July 2, law enforcement recovered clothing and other items from Morss’s home that match what he carried on Jan. 6. Among the items were a “don’t tread on me” flag, a neck gaiter, a military utility bag, a black tourniquet, and military fatigues.”
In addition, “law enforcement also recovered a fully constructed U.S. Capitol Lego set,” prosecutors wrote.
It’s unclear why Morss had the Lego set. […]
But prosecutors also claimed that Morss had three different firearms including a handgun, a shotgun and a rifle. He also had a notebook that included “Step by Step To Create Hometown Militia.”
Morss is one of over 535 people that have been charged in connection with the deadly riots on Jan. 6. […]
A base housing U.S. troops in Iraq was hit with more than a dozen rockets on Wednesday, causing two minor injuries.
The al-Assad Air Base in western Iraq was hit by 14 rockets at approximately 12:30 p.m. local time, Col. Wayne Marotto, the spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition Operation Inherent Resolve, confirmed on Twitter.
Marotto said the rockets landed on the base and its perimeter, and force defensive measures were activated. He later tweeted there was 100 percent accountability at the base following the attack, though “two personnel sustained minor injuries” and damage is still to be assessed.
[…] Such attacks — which have ramped up since late last month — follow Pentagon-launched airstrikes on Iran-backed militia groups on the Iraq-Syria border on June 27, which killed four Iraqi fighters.
[…] A militant group calling itself “The brigades to avenge al-Muhandis” took responsibility for the attack on al-Assad, saying it will force U.S. troops “to leave our lands defeated.”
The group takes its name from Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, killed last year alongside Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in a Trump administration-ordered drone strike in Baghdad. […]
As we said in our post about Donald Trump loving Hitler so much, allegedly, there’s another book excerpt we have to look at today, and it’s from Michael Wolff’s new book […] Yeah yeah yeah, we know, sometimes Wolff has been accused of not getting everything exactly right, but there’s nothing about this that rings as wrong to us.
Would you be SHOCKED to learn that in the year of our Lord 2020, Donald Trump was continually suggesting using COVID as an excuse to cancel the election, not only because he’s a wannabe tyrant, but also because he’s that stupid? No, you would not. But that’s what Wolff says.
[…] The full excerpt is at the Times of London’s site, and it’s amazing. Apparently Jared Kushner had seen polls that said 70 percent of Americans believed mask mandates and testing were the way through the pandemic, and wanted his dumb father-in-law to try that strategy. But Trump was like NOOOOOOOOOOO!
He had a different idea:
If the Democrats were using Covid against him, he would use it against them: they could just use Covid as a reason to delay the election. “People can’t get to the polls. It’s a national emergency. Right?”
There was often a collective intake of breath whenever Trump went where no one would have dreamed of going. The reaction now was somewhere between gauging Trump’s being Trump, with everybody understanding that nine-tenths of what came out of his mouth was blah-blah and recognising that here might be a hinge moment in history and that he really might be thinking he could delay the election. If the latter, then who needed now, right now, to go into the breach?
A reluctant Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff, did: “Mr. President, there isn’t any procedure for that. There would be no constitutional precedent or mechanism. The date is fixed. The first Tuesday . . .” Meadows’s sugary North Carolinian voice was tinged with panic.
“Uh-uh. But what about — ?”
“I’m afraid — no, you can’t. We can’t.”
“I’m sure there might be a way, but . . . well . . .”
He was sure there might be a way! Didn’t he have an Article II that said he could do anything he wanted? […] Maybe he really thought he could fix it by just declaring absolute power.
Reportedly, a few days later Trump was at his Bedminster trash palace in New Jersey practicing losing debates to Joe Biden — Wolff says there was way more “golf” than “debate prep” — and he brought it up with Chris Christie.
“I’m thinking about calling it off,” said Trump.
“The prep?” said Christie.
“No, the election — too much virus.”
“Well, you can’t do that, man,” said Christie, a former US attorney, half chuckling. “You do know, you can’t declare martial law. You do know that, right?”
LOLOL, we are sorry, but the mental image of that incredibly stupid man saying he was going to call off the election because “TOO MUCH VIRUS,” it is just making us laugh.
And if this account is true, then no, Trump didn’t know that. This dumb m••••f••••r thought Mike Pence could just refuse to certify the election on January 6. [Trump] thinks rakes prevent forest fires. This dumb m••••f••••r thought Greenland was for sale.
Wonkette: “Kevin McCarthy Contemplates Best Way To Ratf*ck January 6 Commission”
Kevin McCarthy is in a pickle.
The House minority leader’s own party played footsie with the rioters who overran the Capitol on January 6, and he himself has already admitted that Trump bears responsibility for the violence that day. Then his lieutenants painstakingly negotiated a bipartisan commission to investigate the attack, only to see a panel that would give Republicans everything they wanted get tanked by Republicans in the Senate. And now that Democrats have established a Select Committee to investigate the insurrection — i.e. do Congress’s damn job — McCarthy is faced with a dilemma.
Should he participate and try to blow up the process from within, or stand on the sidelines and denigrate the findings as a partisan smear job when it reveals that multiple members of his own caucus gave aid and comfort to the enemies of democracy just six short months ago?
According to the Politico Huddle, McCarthy has largely ruled out the second option and will soon appoint five members to the panel. The issue is now whether to try to turn the whole thing into a circus by unleashing freaks like Matt Gaetz on the committee, or to go with members of his caucus with some actual credibility who might be able to push back against Democratic narratives and release a minority report blaming Antifa or the FBI or the Pope.
[…] it’s only the freaks who are lining up to take the assignment, with Reps. Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Lauren Boebert hot to trot, while their more serious colleagues — if only by comparison — are running for the hills, refusing to take part in a process that will brand them as traitors to their own kind if they participate in good faith.
[…] one House Republican acknowledged that there’s virtually zero prospect of any good outcome for Republicans here. If McCarthy tries to poison the well with weirdos, he makes Democrats look sane by comparison. But treating the endeavor as legitimate is a tacit endorsement of the committee’s eventual findings.
“I mean, we’ve got three impeachment managers on the” Democratic side, the source complained.
CNN reports that McCarthy will probably go with tried and true ratfuckers like Jim Jordan, who know how to disrupt proceedings without shooting themselves in the face with embarrassing stunts like storming a SCIF for an impromptu pizza party. And indeed Politico confirms that “the ex-president will be expecting Jordan’s appointment,” despite the fact that his dance card is already full with spots on the Judiciary Committee, coronavirus select committee, and the GOP “task force on the future of American freedoms,” a thing that exists.
And fresh off shivving Liz Cheney to become conference chair, Rep. Elise Stefanik may find herself sitting next to her again if McCarthy taps her for a spot on the committee, to which Cheney has already been appointed.
[…] Embrace the cognitive dissonance, Florida Man, that’s what we’re all doing as we watch the guy who admitted that the Benghazi committee was a ruse to take out Hillary Clinton [complain] about partisan witch hunts.
Kathryn Garcia and Maya Wiley both sought to become the first woman elected mayor of New York City. They finished behind Eric Adams in the Democratic primary.
Kathryn Garcia and Maya D. Wiley, who ran muscular campaigns to become the first female mayor of New York City, acknowledged on Wednesday that their bids had fallen short, conceding to Eric Adams in the Democratic primary.
“For 400 years, no woman has held the top seat at City Hall,” said Ms. Garcia, a former sanitation commissioner who trailed by one percentage point in Tuesday’s tally. “This campaign has come closer than any other moment in history to breaking that glass ceiling in selecting New York City’s first female mayor. We cracked the hell out of it, and it’s ready to be broken […]”
[…] Andrew Yang, likely helped her draw second-place votes from his supporters.
A short while after Ms. Garcia’s concession speech, Ms. Wiley, who finished third, spoke outside the Lucerne Hotel on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
“I stand here today, one, to congratulate Eric Adams on his victory,” said Ms. Wiley […]
Ms. Wiley, who often spoke emotionally about what it meant to connect with and inspire young Black girls on the campaign trail, acknowledged that Mr. Adams’s victory carried historical significance: […]
“That has tremendous meaning for so many New Yorkers, particularly Black and brown ones,” Ms. Wiley said.
She added that while both she and Ms. Garcia had failed to win the nomination, their campaigns still marked a significant stride forward for women across the city.
“We did shatter the glass ceiling,” Ms. Wiley said. “The glass ceiling that said that women could not be top-tier candidates. The glass ceiling that said women would be discounted. The glass ceiling that we can’t be seen as leaders.” […]
Trump claims to have filed a “class-action lawsuit” against Twitter and Facebook, but it looks an awful lot like a fundraising gimmick.
Donald Trump has spent years peddling conspiracy theories about social-media companies and their nefarious liberal schemes, with assorted vows to exact revenge against tech giants such as Facebook and Twitter. This morning, it appears the former president took some kind of legal action against his perceived foes.
[…] Trump said Wednesday that he is filing a class action lawsuit against tech giants Facebook and Twitter — along with their CEOs, Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey — because of bans imposed on him and others…. He spoke from behind a lectern bedecked with an insignia designed to look like the presidential seal and in front of a backdrop reminiscent of a White House portico. [LOL]
These optics wouldn’t ordinarily be especially relevant, but in this case, the former president — who likes to pretend he won the election he lost — is engaged in a theatrical display that extends beyond a sketchy lectern, insignia, and backdrop. [video available at the link]
What Trump is selling is a strange myth that social-media companies — including Facebook, which is an integral part of the conservative media ecosystem — are quietly pulling the strings to hurt far-right voices and causes. The former president used buzzwords at this morning’s announcement that Republican conspiracy theorists no doubt recognized: “We’re demanding an end to the shadowbanning, a stop to the silencing, and a stop to the blacklisting, banishing, and canceling that you know so well.”
There’s little to suggest such behind-the-scenes tactics are real, but conservatives have nevertheless convinced themselves that they are victims of Silicon Valley and rascally executives who are out to get them.
[…] lawsuit claims that Facebook isn’t really a private-sector entity, but rather is a “state actor,” connected somehow to the government, that cannot impede speech under the First Amendment.
It’s a difficult pitch to take seriously. […] Trump has a lengthy history of making legal threats that evaporate into nothing, and time will tell whether this little exercise will actually be litigated in court.
What’s more, it’s not yet clear what the case is even supposed to be: it’s been billed as a “class-action lawsuit,” though we don’t yet know what class of people Trump claims to be representing.
Of course, even if the lawsuit is real, it’s easy to imagine Trump pulling the plug on the endeavor once he realizes that he’d have to give sworn testimony — about his Jan. 6 misconduct, among other things — as part of the litigation.
[…] there have been related cases along these lines, and they’ve all failed: private social-media companies are not arms of the government, judges have ruled, and they have the authority to regulate content. Similarly, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects companies from such lawsuits, still exists, […]
So why bother? Why go through the motions with a misguided public-relations stunt, rooted entirely in dubious claims and conspiracy theories that don’t make any sense?
There’s no great mystery here: “Before Mr. Trump was done speaking, both the National Republican Congressional Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee had sent text messages about the lawsuit and asked for contributions. Mr. Trump’s political action committee sent its own solicitation shortly after the event ended. ‘Donate NOW,’ it said.”
[…] Republican voters who’ve been conditioned to believe that Twitter and Facebook are big meanies toward conservatives will likely grab their credit cards to show their support for Trump and this pointless exercise.
But that doesn’t mean this lawsuit has merit; it means the opposite.
Texas lawmakers are reconvening in a special legislative session that begins Thursday in which voting restrictions are expected to be a top priority for Republicans.
The special session starts a week after the Supreme Court gave a green light to an Arizona law that imposed some restrictions on how ballots may be cast and collected. Voting rights activists worry that the court’s decision is a signal that the federal courts won’t step in if states like Texas try to make it harder for citizens to cast a ballot…..
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has said more needs to be done in the state to make elections more secure — without offering any evidence that voter fraud has marred results in Texas in recent elections.
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene reported that there had been numerous sightings of Jewish space lasers across the United States today.
Greene said that the “increased Jewish-space-laser activity” was a matter of deep concern, although she was not certain of the lasers’ purpose.
“You’ll have to ask the Rothschilds that,” she said. “But it can’t be anything good.”
Complaining that the use of the Hebraic lasers had gone unchecked, she blasted the Biden Administration for its inaction on what she called “the No. 1 threat to our national security.”
“I don’t expect Sleepy Joe to do anything about it,” she said. “I guess we’ll have to wait until August when Donald Trump’s President again.”
The text is illustrated with a photo of Fourth of July fireworks. :-)
Forty-six people are now confirmed dead in the Miami Beach-area condo building’s partial collapse, officials said Wednesday while announcing 10 more recovered bodies — the biggest single-day spike in the death toll yet.
After storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, a Northern Virginia man began forming his own militia-like group in the D.C. suburbs and building up a supply of explosives under the guise of a Bible study group, according to federal prosecutors.
Fi Duong, 27, appeared in court Friday and was released to home confinement pending trial, over the objections of prosecutors who sought stricter terms. According to the court record, at the time of his arrest he had several guns, including an AK-47, and the material to make 50 molotov cocktails. Details of the case — one of the first if not the first in which the government publicly disclosed it had someone undercover to continue monitoring a Jan. 6 defendant — were made public Tuesday.
[…] Duong entered the Capitol on Jan. 6, according to prosecutors, telling an undercover federal agent he climbed the building wall, delivered a letter to lawmakers and filmed others opening a door with a crowbar.
An undercover officer with the D.C. police first encountered Duong at the Capitol on Jan. 6, according to the government. Duong described himself as an “operator” and later explained that he wore all black to look like an anti-fascist activist, the government alleged in court documents. In video later seen by investigators, Duong is identified in court documents as shouting “We’re coming for you Nancy” and pushing a fellow protester toward the doors on the Senate side of the building.
They stayed in touch, and a week later Duong allegedly told the undercover officer he was part of a “cloak and dagger” group that will “build resistances . . . for what will inevitably come.” In March, he told associates, “Keep your guns and be ready to use them.”
He and others held “Bible study” where they discussed firearms and other training, according to court documents; Duong also brought someone he described as a “three percenter” to one meeting. The right-wing Three Percenters movement, formed in 2008, is named after the false claim that only 3 percent of colonists fought in the American Revolution. Several adherents have been charged with conspiring to storm the Capitol. Duong said he had attended some rallies with the group but preferred to stay independent.
[…] He talked about surveilling the Capitol building, and in February an associate took some footage of it, according to prosecutors. He also talked about freeing alleged rioters who were behind bars, saying, according to the government, “I see that as an opportunity. With every great revolution, you go to the prisons and you break them out.” […]
CNN reports that McCarthy will probably go with tried and true ratfuckers like Jim Jordan, who know how to disrupt proceedings without shooting themselves in the face with embarrassing stunts like storming a SCIF for an impromptu pizza party. And indeed Politico confirms that “the ex-president will be expecting Jordan’s appointment,” despite the fact that his dance card is already full with spots on the Judiciary Committee, coronavirus select committee, and the GOP “task force on the future of American freedoms,” a thing that exists.
And fresh off shivving Liz Cheney to become conference chair, Rep. Elise Stefanik may find herself sitting next to her again if McCarthy taps her for a spot on the committee, to which Cheney has already been appointed.
My belief was that Pelosi appoints the members, this group “in consultation with” McCarthy. I didn’t think he could appoint members without her agreement. Am I wrong about this?
Haitian President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated at his home early this morning, according to official reports. First lady Martine Moïse was also injured and has been hospitalized. Moïse had been in office since 2017 but faced large-scale protests from 2018 denouncing government corruption and demanding his resignation. Rights groups say he’s responsible for the brutal crackdown on protesters and other government critics. Earlier this year, his opponents accused Moïse of orchestrating a coup to stay in power beyond February 7, when his term officially ended. But Moïse clung to power with support from the Biden administration. Popular demonstrations against Moïse had recently escalated.
Eric Adams Set to Become New York City’s Next Mayor After Clinching Primary
The Associated Press called the Democratic primary race to become the city’s next mayor for Brooklyn borough president and former police officer Eric Adams. The latest tally, which accounts for most absentee ballots, saw Adams edge out former Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia by one percentage point, or just 8,426 votes. Adams, who would be the city’s second Black mayor, ran to the right of his party, promising to tackle crime. He is also known for supporting charter schools and the real estate industry.
Meanwhile, updated tallies in the City Council races show women are on track to represent a majority for the first time ever.
Nikole Hannah-Jones Rejects Tenure at UNC, Heads to Howard University with Ta-Nehisi Coates
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones has rejected a tenure offer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and will instead join the faculty of Howard University as the inaugural Knight Chair in Race and Journalism. Hannah-Jones, who is best known for her work on The New York Times’s 1619 Project, was originally denied tenure by UNC….
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White House Quietly Hosts Brother of Mohammed bin Salman
Top U.S. officials hosted the brother of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Tuesday. The Biden administration had not publicly announced the visit by Deputy Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman amid ongoing pressure to reevaluate the relationship between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. An intelligence report released in February found that Mohammed bin Salman directly approved the assassination of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Tuesday the U.S. was reaffirming its commitment to the nation’s “long-standing partnership” and Saudi defense.
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Far-Right Israeli Gov’t Fails to Renew Apartheid “Citizenship Law”
In Israel, the recently formed government of far-right Prime Minister Naftali Bennett failed to extend an apartheid law that denies citizenship, and even residency, to Palestinians from the Occupied Territories that are married to Israelis. The racist law had been extended every year since it was enacted in 2003. The law failed to pass after former leader Benjamin Netanyahu’s party and his allies voted against it to undermine the ruling coalition which ousted him last month.
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Colombian Special Tribunal Accuses Soldiers of Killing 120 Civilians as Part of Drugs War
In Colombia, 10 military members and one civilian have been accused of murdering at least 120 people, forcibly disappearing two dozen others and falsely claiming their victims were guerrilla members who had been killed in combat. Tuesday’s indictment marks the first time Colombia’s Special Jurisdiction for Peace tribunal charged military members involved in what’s known as the “false positives” scandal, where thousands of extrajudicial killings were falsely portrayed as leftist rebels who died in combat. The “false positives” were meant to help give a sense of the Colombian military’s victory in the half-century U.S.-backed conflict against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC. This is Catalina Díaz, a judge with Colombia’s peace tribunal.
Catalina Díaz Gómez: “We have found that it was a pattern of macro-criminality, which is to say the repetition of at least 120 murders during two years in the same region by the same group of people associated with a criminal organization and following the same modus operandi.”
The tribunal was created after a peace deal was signed in Colombia in 2016.
140 Children Taken by Gunmen as Nigeria’s Kidnapping Crisis Mounts
In Nigeria, at least 140 children went missing after gunmen raided a boarding school in Kaduna state Monday in the 10th mass kidnapping to be recorded in northwest Nigeria since December. Also on Monday, armed men kidnapped at least eight people, including a 1-year-old, from a hospital staff residence in Kaduna. The U.N. says the mounting attacks are leading fearful parents to keep their kids out of class, compounding the educational crisis in Nigeria, where 13.2 million children do not attend school….
Dutch Reporter Peter R. de Vries in Critical Condition After Being Shot on the Street
In the Netherlands, renowned crime reporter Peter R. de Vries is in critical condition after he was shot in downtown Amsterdam Tuesday. De Vries was attacked as he left a television studio. A video circulating on social media shows the award-winning journalist laying on the street as blood pools around his head. At least two suspects are in custody. The 64-year-old is a household name in the Netherlands and has investigated cold-case killings and reported on organized crime for decades. He had received death threats in the past and was previously given police protection. In 2008, de Vries won an International Emmy for investigating the 2005 disappearance of U.S. teenager Natalee Holloway in the Caribbean island of Aruba.
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Heat Wave May Have Killed 1 Billion Shellfish, Other Sea Creatures on Canadian Coast
In Canada, a marine biologist said last week’s record-shattering, climate change-fueled heat wave may have killed over 1 billion sea creatures on the Salish Sea coastline, such as mussels, starfish and barnacles. Dead shellfish were also found in the Pacific Northwest. This comes as more areas around the globe report new heat records. Finland’s Arctic Lapland hit its hottest temperature in over a century at 92.5 degrees Fahrenheit.
Reporters without Borders (RSF) has criticised the far-right Spanish party Vox for suggesting that the head of an editorial group that publishes a satirical magazine that frequently lampoons the party be held to account for its content on the street outside his office.
On Tuesday, Vox’s official Twitter account published the person’s name and photograph, and accused the magazine, El Jueves, of “spreading hate against millions of Spaniards on a daily basis”.
It added: “It’s possible that many of them may begin demanding that he takes responsibility for it when they see him leave his office.” The tweet referred to the city and street location of the office.
The party appeared to have been especially irked by El Jueves’s recent decision to depict Vox’s leadership in series of grotesque, Garbage Pail Kid-style caricatures.
The cartoons showed its leaders defecating, wearing underwear decorated with swastikas and oozing poison. One showed Vox co-founder José Antonio Ortega Lara, who was kidnapped by Eta terrorists and held in dungeon-like conditions for 18 months, blistering in the sun. A caption riffing on the fascist anthem Cara al Sol read: “It’s not healthy to be in the sun after so long in the dark.”
Vox’s actions were condemned by RSF, which works to protect freedom of expression. In a tweet, the group said Vox had crossed every line – “not just ethical ones, which it’s ignored for some time, but also legal ones” – by “singling out an editor and providing his work address so that ‘he takes responsibility’ when he steps on to the street”.
The satirical website El Mundo Today also offered its support and solidarity. “The ultimate aim of this threat is to menace the freedom of expression of editors, media owners, humorists, artists and, indeed, of any citizen,” it said in a statement.
“In a country such as Spain, which has suffered the scourge of terrorism and in which there are precedents for acts of violence against satirical publications, this move marks a red line that is neither legal nor ethically tolerable.”
The former Spanish health minister Salvador Illa offered his “most forceful condemnation” of Vox’s actions, while his fellow Socialist MP José Zaragoza tweeted: “They hate humour. They hate intelligence, they hate, they hate, they hate. That’s why Vox has singled out the editor of El Jueves – because humour is the the greatest enemy of hatred.”
The artists behind the cartoons said they were delighted that their work “was winding up the fascist cry-babies so much”.
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El Jueves replied to Vox with a tweet and a shrug, writing: “‘And now, to prove that we’re not the far right, we’re going to do exactly what other far-right groups have done before.’”
Women have taken up guns in northern and central Afghanistan, marching in the streets in their hundreds and sharing pictures of themselves with assault rifles on social media, in a show of defiance as the Taliban make sweeping gains nationwide.
One of the biggest demonstrations was in central Ghor province, where hundreds of women turned out at the weekend, waving guns and chanting anti-Taliban slogans.
They are not likely to head to the frontlines in large numbers any time soon, because of both social conservatism and lack of experience. But the public demonstrations, at a time of urgent threat from the militants, are a reminder of how frightened many women are about what Taliban rule could mean for them and their families.
“There were some women who just wanted to inspire security forces, just symbolic, but many more were ready to go to the battlefields,” said Halima Parastish, the head of the women’s directorate in Ghor and one of the marchers. “That includes myself. I and some other women told the governor around a month ago that we’re ready to go and fight.”
The Taliban have been sweeping across rural Afghanistan, taking dozens of districts including in places such as northern Badakhshan province, which 20 years ago was an anti-Taliban stronghold. They now have multiple provincial capitals in effect under siege.
In areas they control, the Taliban have already brought in restrictions on women’s education, their freedom of movement and their clothing, activists and residents of those areas say. In one area, flyers were circulating demanding that women put on burqas.
Even women from extremely conservative rural areas aspire to more education, greater freedom of movement and a greater role in their families, according to a new survey of a group whose voices are rarely heard. Taliban rule will take them in the opposite direction.
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For conservative militants, facing women in battle can be humiliating. Isis fighters in Syria were reportedly more frightened of dying at the hands of female Kurdish forces than being killed by men.
It is rare, but not unprecedented, for Afghan women to take up arms, particularly in slightly less conservative parts of the country….
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The Taliban shrugged off Afghanistan’s historical precedents, claiming the demonstrations were propaganda and men would not allow female relatives to fight.
“Women will never pick up guns against us. They are helpless and forced by the defeated enemy,” said a spokesperson, Zabihullah Mujahid. “They can’t fight.”
The Ghor provincial governor, Abdulzahir Faizzada, said in a phone interview that some of the women who came out in the streets of Firozkoh, the provincial capital, had already battled the Taliban, and most had endured violence from the group.
“The majority of these women were those who had recently escaped from Taliban areas. They have already been through war in their villages, they lost their sons and brothers, they are angry,” he said. Faizzada added that he would train women who did not have experience with weapons, if the government in Kabul approved it.
The Taliban’s conservative rules are particularly unwelcome in Ghor, where women traditionally wear headscarves rather than covering themselves fully with the burqa, and work in fields and villages beside their men, Parastish said.
The Taliban have banned women even from taking care of animals or working the land in areas of Ghor they control, she added. They have closed girls schools, ordered women not to leave home without a male guardian and even banned them from gathering for weddings, saying only men should attend.
Women from these areas were among those who marched. “More than a dozen women have escaped from Allahyar in Shahrak district last week and came to us and asked for guns to go and fight for their lands and freedom. The same situation is in Charsadda region,” Parastish said.
“Women said: ‘We are getting killed and injured without defending ourselves, why not fight back?’ They were telling us that at least two women were in labour in their region, with no medical things around and they couldn’t come with them.”
For now, she said, the main thing holding the women back was the men in power. “The governor said there is no need for us now and they will let us know.”
My belief was that Pelosi appoints the members, this group “in consultation with” McCarthy. I didn’t think he could appoint members without her agreement. Am I wrong about this?
Yeah, I think you are right. McCarthy can try to appoint the “ratfuckers” but Pelosi has final approval. However, I think Pelosi could have a political problem on her hands if she refuses all of McCarthy’s suggestions. I’m in wait-and-see mode on this.
Were Team Trump’s election interference efforts in Arizona legal? Arizona’s secretary of state believes the answer is no.
It was late last week when the public first learned of new records documenting an important dimension in Donald Trump’s scandalous post-election schemes. As Arizona prepared to certify Joe Biden’s victory in the state, the then-president and his team reached out Republicans in Arizona’s largest county as part of a highly dubious pressure campaign — and there’s evidence to prove it.
It wasn’t long before many started asking a fairly obvious question: was this legal? As the Arizona Republic reported overnight, one leading official in the Grand Canyon State believes the answer may be no.
Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs on Wednesday asked Attorney General Mark Brnovich to open a criminal investigation into possible efforts by former President Donald Trump and his allies to influence Maricopa County supervisors as the ballots were still being tallied. Hobbs said some of the communications “involve clear efforts to induce supervisors to refuse to comply with their duties,” which could violate Arizona law.
In her request to the state attorney general, Hobbs also cited at least one potential felony charge under Arizona law.
The secretary of state wasn’t alone. As the Arizona Republic’s article went on to note, Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) also yesterday urged U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to examine the possibility of “an extremely serious crime” in what Gallago called a “pressure campaign” exerted by the Trump campaign and party officials.
In his letter to Garland, the Democratic congressman argued that the Republican efforts “reflect a disturbing trend following the 2020 election of Trump advisors and allies, and even former President Trump himself, committing potential crimes to overturn the election.”
For Trump critics, it’s probably best to keep expectations low. In Arizona, for example, state Attorney General Mark Brnovich is an ambitious Republican who recently launched a U.S. Senate campaign. The idea of him seriously investigating Trump for alleged election interference is difficult to imagine.
In D.C., meanwhile, Garland has been reluctant to pursue Trump-related scandals for fear of appearing “partisan.”
[…] there’s an ongoing criminal probe in Georgia, where members of a grand jury are hearing evidence about the former president’s alleged efforts to intervene in the state’s vote count.
[…] If those efforts sparked a criminal probe, there’s no reason Team Trump’s gambit in Arizona shouldn’t receive similar scrutiny.
[…] By some measures, strengthening the IRS could generate an additional $700 billion in tax revenue over the next decade, simply by enforcing the laws already on the books. For the “law and order” party, this shouldn’t be too heavy a lift.
But the right is going after the idea with a vengeance anyway, effectively saying they want to defund the tax police. Many on the right would have Americans believe tax cheats aren’t a problem, but efforts to catch tax cheats are a problem.
The conservatives’ motivations remain an open question. Perhaps the right simply hates the IRS reflexively. Maybe some conservatives are concerned in a general sense about the government having more resources for domestic priorities going forward. It’s also entirely possible that some on the right simply want to derail the bipartisan infrastructure deal and see this as a convenient way to kill the agreement. […]
The lawyers behind what Sidney Powell described as the “Kraken” lawsuits that aimed to overturn the 2020 election for Trump are trying to weasel their way out of attending a Michigan judge’s hearing on potential sanctions against them. They wanted their lawyers to attend in their place.
The judge’s response? “DENIED”
And in case you missed it, Rudy Giuliani’s law license in D.C. got suspended yesterday in response to his license getting suspended in New York last month for blatantly lying in court and in public about the election.
The South Carolina Attorney General Strategized With Big-Wig Conservative Lawyers On Suit To Overturn Election, Records Show
In the days before South Carolina joined several other Republican-led states in a lawsuit to overturn the results of the 2020 election, the state’s attorney general received advice from a former North Carolina chief justice and the leader of an influential right-wing Christian legal group, public records show.
The emails document what essentially appears to be a lobbying effort, in which well-known right-wing lawyers spoke to South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson about “democrats’ shenanigans” and the actions of “unscrupulous Democrat election officials.” These supposed Democratic actions, they argued, led to the mass disenfranchisement of South Carolina voters.
Ultimately, when Texas went to the Supreme Court on December 8 and asked it to overturn the election results in four swing states, South Carolina would join the suit. The legal effort piggybacked on months of lies from Donald Trump about election fraud — and a parallel pressure campaign on local officials and election workers to take part in the scheme to steal a second Trump term. Together, the gambit amounted to an epic attempt to subvert democracy.
South Carolina was one of 17 states to sign onto an amicus brief in the case, signaling its support for Texas’ fight. And in the days leading up to his announcement that South Carolina would join that brief, emails show Wilson’s thinking, and the legal thinkers in his orbit.
The records, obtained via a public records request by the left-leaning watchdog group American Oversight and shared with TPM, feature an exchange between Wilson and Don Brown. Brown is an author and attorney known among other things for his representation of Clint Lorance, the convicted murderer and Trump pardon recipient.
In an email to Wilson and Chief Deputy Attorney General Jeff Young on Nov. 24, Brown referenced a call the previous day with the men, noting what appeared to be skepticism. What followed reads like an elevator pitch.
“Yesterday during our conversation, you raised a topic on the minds of many, that being the so-called speculative nature of the number of votes in play that may be subject to fraud,” he wrote.
But Brown brought good news: A former Trump campaign operative, Matt Braynard, was accumulating evidence of fraud in Georgia. And Brown himself claimed to be working with the conspiracy-minded pro-Trump attorney Sidney Powell and Mark Martin, the former chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court “on a variety of overlapping issues related to the democrats’ shenanigans in stealing the presidential elections.” (Spoiler alert: Braynard’s data would turn out to be riddled with errors.)
Brown then got to the point: “I think it will become clear that our voters in South Carolina have been disenfranchised by the unconstitutional actions of unscrupulous Democrat election officials, especially in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania” — three of the four states that Texas would sue in the coming weeks. By this point, as TPM has reported, a draft of that suit was being circulated privately by Trump ally Kris Kobach and others.
[…] The contact between Wilson and Martin is significant. The New York Times, in its lengthy breakdown of precursors to the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, reported that Martin was part of “a team of lawyers with close ties to the Trump campaign” who planned the “sweeping” lawsuit that sought to overturn the election.
Martin, who the Times described as an informal Trump adviser, also reportedly argued that then-Vice President Mike Pence had the power to stop the certification of the Electoral College vote and throw out disputed results.
[…] Brown then added a tantalizing detail: “It’s my understanding that the analysis will address both factual and legal issues. I’m told that the study was authorized a few weeks back at ‘the highest levels,’ although I didn’t ask the Cj what he meant by that. I took that to mean the study was commissioned and authorized by the White House, but he did not say that specifically.” […]
He described having “constant conversations” with other attorneys generals’ offices, then said he received the “updated brief” the week prior and even had a follow-up conversation with Farris.
“Mike was very accommodating and knowledgeable about the legal issues raised in the pleading,” Wilson wrote.
“We raised a few issues with Mike that were also raised by other states that involved issues with state standing under 14th amendment analysis as well as issues with the remedy,” he added. […]
ANOTHER rightwing ‘politician’ who alleges fraud by committing fraud against the voters. Either clueless, a zealot or a criminal.
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Once again, South Carolina is first in line for treason against the Union.
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This was a well-organized conspiracy to violate the sovereignty of several states.
Yet, when Congress proposes common sense minimum voting rights standards designed to protect the rights of citizens (and which make conspiracies like this harder to pull off), there’s a wailing and gnashing of teeth about the federal government infringing upon “states rights”.
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Every one of them [Trump supporters] accuses their opponents of doing exactly what they are doing themselves.
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The major takeaway here is that when these cretins attempt to steal the 2024 election, they will absolutely be stupid enough to plan it in writings that are subject to public access.
Here’s a link to the July 8 Guardian coronavirus world liveblog.
From there:
US cases of Covid-19 are up around 11% over last week, believed to be almost entirely among people who have not yet been vaccinated against the novel coronavirus, according to officials.
Reuters reports that around 93% of Covid-19 cases have occurred in counties with vaccination rates of less than 40%, said US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Rochelle Walensky, adding that nearly all deaths nationwide are among unvaccinated people.
Cases of Covid-19 are surging in counties representing 9 million people, Walensky said. The White House plans to concentrate federal assistance for vaccinating against and treating Covid-19 in states including Missouri, Nevada, and Illinois, said Jeff Zients, who leads the White House’s Covid-19 response team.
Tokyo Olympics to be held without spectators
The organisers of the Tokyo Olympics have agreed to hold the event without spectators under a Covid-19 state of emergency, Japan’s Olympics minister Tamayo Marukawa has said.
It comes after prime minister Yoshihide Suga said Tokyo’s fourth state of emergency would begin on Monday – 11 days before the Games open – and end on 22 August, two days before the start of the Paralympics.
Previously, the IOC and the Tokyo 2020 organising committee said last month that attendances would be capped at 50% of a venue’s capacity, or a maximum of 10,000 people.
Medical advisers have said that having no spectators at the Games would be the least risky option, amid public concern that the arrival of tens of thousands of athletes, officials, sponsors reports and support staff could trigger a new wave of infections.
Having banned overseas sports fans, the Olympic movement was pinning its hopes on a limited number of Japanese spectators creating a semblance of atmosphere.
Today’s talks between the IOC, organisers and Japanese government officials included the IOC’s president, Thomas Bach, who arrived in Tokyo to oversee the last phase of preparations.
A bookshop chain in Hungary has been fined for selling a children’s story depicting a day in the life of a child with same-sex parents, with officials condemning the picture book for featuring such families.
The picture book, Micsoda család!, is a Hungarian translation combining two titles by US author Lawrence Schimel and illustrator Elīna Brasliņa: Early One Morning, which shows a young boy’s morning with his two mothers, and Bedtime, Not Playtime!, in which a young girl with two fathers is reluctant to go to sleep.
Reuters reported that the 250,000 forints (£600) fine was imposed on the bookshop chain Líra Könyv by Pest county, the local authority for the area surrounding Budapest.
Pest county commissioner Richard Tarnai told television station Hír TV that Líra Könyv had violated rules on unfair commercial practices by failing to clearly indicate that the book contained “content which deviates from the norm”.
“The book was there among other fairytale books and thus committed a violation,” Tarnai said. “There is no way of knowing that this book is about a family that is different than a normal family.”
Schimel wrote on Twitter that the Hungarian government is “trying to normalise hate and prejudice with these concerted attacks against books like mine … which represent for kids the plural and diverse world they live in.”
He told the Guardian that the idea for the books was to “celebrate queer families, to put more queer joy into the world, so that the only books available to children weren’t about conflicts”.
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Líra Könyv said that it would now put up a sign warning customers that it sold “books with different content than traditional ones”.
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Despite the events in Hungary, Schimel said he was “more determined to keep trying to create books like these – books that respect the intelligence of children and offer the vast, complex world to them, in fun and accessible ways”.
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A widely criticised new law, which bans LGBT people from featuring in educational materials or TV shows for children under 18, comes into force on Thursday. The government claims the law is intended to protect children.
On the same day, the European parliament is expected to condemn the law and urge the European Commission to fast-track a legal case against Hungary over discrimination against LGBT people.
The law has already been condemned as “unacceptable” by the Hungarian Publishers’ and Booksellers’ Association, which said it “creates conditions for restricting freedom of the arts and speech”. It warned that “several masterpieces of world and Hungarian literature” currently used in the secondary school curriculum, including Sappho, Ovid, Thomas Mann, Marcel Proust, Mihály Babits and Sándor Weöres could come under the ban.
Earlier this year, Hungary’s government ordered that a disclaimer warning of “behaviour inconsistent with traditional gender roles” be printed in a fairytale anthology that contains some stories with LGBT themes.
Haiti Declares “State of Siege” After Assassination of President Jovenel Moïse
Haiti’s interim prime minister has declared a “state of siege” and imposed martial law following Wednesday morning’s assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. The first lady, Martine Moïse, was injured in the attack and was airlifted to a hospital in Miami, where she is reportedly in critical but stable condition. Haitian police say they’ve arrested two suspected assassins and killed four others in a gunfight. Video from the scene shows the heavily armed attackers claimed to be from the U.S. DEA — the Drug Enforcement Administration. U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price dismissed those claims Wednesday and condemned the assassination of President Moïse.
Ned Price: “Those who seek to accomplish their political goals through violence and by subverting the rule of law will not succeed in thwarting the Haitian people and their desire for a better, for a brighter future.”
The U.S. twice supported coups that removed Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide from power — first in 1991, then again in 2004.
It is unclear who is currently in charge of Haiti. Shortly before his assassination, Moïse announced plans to install a new prime minister to replace interim Premier Claude Joseph. Two men are now claiming to be prime minister.
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North America Recorded Hottest June on Record Amid Worsening Climate Crisis
At least one person was killed and several others injured Wednesday after Tropical Storm Elsa made landfall on Florida’s northern Gulf Coast. Over the weekend, Elsa crashed through the Caribbean, killing at least three people and causing major damage to homes and other buildings. California is bracing for dangerously high temperatures, with a heat wave forecast to bring highs of 115 degrees Fahrenheit in the Central Valley and more than 120 degrees to some desert areas. This comes as new data show North America just experienced the hottest June ever recorded, with temperatures averaging more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
Line 3 Pipeline Foes Say Enbridge Spilled Drilling Chemicals in Minnesota River
In Minnesota, Indigenous-led water protectors continue to take nonviolent direct action to stop construction of Enbridge’s Line 3 tar sands pipeline. On Tuesday, activists locked themselves to drilling equipment and built blockades on access roads in a bid to stop Enbridge from drilling under the Willow River. Water protectors say construction crews appeared to puncture an aquifer, discharging drilling mud and chemicals into the river. This is Winona LaDuke, an Anishinaabe activist and executive director of Honor the Earth.
Winona LaDuke: “The rivers belong to the fish. They belong to the animals, and they belong to the people. And they don’t belong to Enbridge. So, we the people protect the rivers.”
If completed, Enbridge’s Line 3 pipeline would account for carbon emissions equivalent to 50 new coal-fired power plants.
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Human Rights Commission Calls for Demilitarization of Colombia’s Police
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights says Colombian authorities used “excessive and disproportionate” force to quell massive mobilizations against the right-wing government of President Iván Duque. Since the protests began, over 80 people have died, many at the hands of police and paramilitary forces. Commissioner Antonia Urrejola called on Colombia Wednesday to make structural changes to its militarized police force.
Antonia Urrejola: “The commission found that on repeated instances in different regions of the country, that the state’s response to protests was characterized as an excessive and disproportionate use of force. In many cases, the action included lethal force. The Inter-American Commission received serious complaints on the indiscriminate use of firearms against protesters, and from people who aren’t participating in the protests.”
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Darnella Frazier’s Uncle Killed by Officer Pursuing Suspect in High-Speed Chase
In Minneapolis, Darnella Frazier — the teenager whose recording of George Floyd’s murder was seen around the world — says her uncle was struck and killed by a police car during a car chase. Her uncle, 40-year-old Leneal Lamont Frazier, was not involved in the chase. Darnella Frazier said of the tragedy, “Another Black man lost his life in the hands of the police! … [T]oday has been a day full of heartbreak and sadness. … [T]he police made a bad decision by doing a high speed chase on a residential road. That bad decision cost my uncle his life.”
…In the wake of Donald Trump’s 2020 election defeat and the disappearance of the anonymous online account “Q” that once served as QAnon’s inspiration, many people who spout QAnon’s false claims have hatched a new plan: run for school board or local office, spread the gospel of Q, but don’t call it QAnon.
It’s a scene that has played out at other school boards and comes as many local meetings have emerged in recent months as cultural flashpoints in a broader battle over the perceived encroachment of race-conscious education — sometimes separately lumped together under the label critical race theory.
In California and Pennsylvania, people who previously espoused QAnon have run for school board positions, sometimes melding conspiracy theories with anti-CRT sentiment. In June, the National Education Association, a prominent teachers union, warned that “conspiracy theorists and proponents of fake news are winning local elections. And their new positions give them a powerful voice in everything from local law enforcement to libraries, trash pickup to textbook purchases.”
These moves signal an important evolution for the QAnon movement, which has fractured since Trump’s defeat, with many proponents rejecting the Q label but continuing to push ideas about societal conspiracies of child abuse. For the past month, the top of the Great Awakening, a leading online QAnon forum that calls itself the “public face of Q,” has featured an abridged quote attributed to Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser and a hero to QAnon followers, who has sworn an oath to the community in the past.
“Local action = national impact. Take responsibility for your school committees or boards. Get involved in the education of our children. Run for local, state and/or federal office,” it reads. “No more excuses.”
QAnon followers have largely ditched the toxic QAnon branding, in part due to a post by Q last fall that read, “There is Q. There are Anons. There is no QAnon,” according to Mike Rothschild, author of “The Storm Is Upon Us: How QAnon Became a Movement, Cult, and Conspiracy.” Another post by Q in September implored followers to “camouflage” themselves online. At a recent event held by some of QAnon’s stalwarts, including Flynn, organizers sought to downplay the theory while still embracing its slogan.
And in recent months, some QAnon followers have shown signs of losing trust in “the plan,” which evolved in recent years into various strains but centers on the belief that Trump would secretly take down a fictitious group of Satanic, child-eating cannibals that ran the United States government….
Posts on QAnon message boards that include the phrase QAnon are now frequently met with nudges that the community is no longer using the term for its movement.
Bans and crackdowns on QAnon by most major social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Amazon have further minimized the use of the term.
Rothschild said the Q posts were part of an effort to distance the conspiracy movement from real-life acts of violence and “Save the Children” rallies that were attributed to QAnon over the last year.
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Rothschild said it’s part of a shift in how the QAnon community now views its mission: stop waiting for the prophecy to come true, and make it happen by winning off-year, low-turnout local elections.
“QAnon traditionally was top down. It was, at its heart, Donald Trump tweeting, ‘My fellow Americans, The Storm is upon us,’ followed by hundreds of thousands of arrests. They know now that’s not happening,” Rothschild said. “The prophecy around which QAnon was built is now done, but this movement now is bigger and stronger and more vocal than ever. So rather than just abandon it, they are changing it. They’re rewriting it on the fly. And now it’s really coming from the bottom up.”
It’s a strategy that has been embraced by some of QAnon’s most ardent and notable proponents.
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“We cannot allow school boards to dictate what is happening in our schools,” Flynn told the crowd. “We dictate that.”
“One thing that is extraordinary to me is how Fox News goes from one allegedly civilization ending threat to the next, as if the last one just disappeared. It’s immigration and caravans, then it’s critical race theory. Each the gravest threat imaginable, until it gets replaced.”
Some snippets from Trump’s Fantasy Legal World, which is mostly about hair furor’s alleged lawsuit against factsborked, twittering, and others:
Just like you, Donald Trump has some big summer plans, though his are probably more grandiose: He’s going to be reinstated to the presidency by August, and he’s going to sue Facebook, Twitter, Google’s YouTube, and their respective CEOs for violating his First Amendment rights. The first of these is impossible. The second, which Trump announced during a press conference this morning, is only marginally more likely to succeed.
Trump’s legal case […] has very little chance of prevailing in court. The defendants are private companies not bound by the First Amendment. Trump’s legal argument hinges on the claim that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a law passed by Congress in 1996, effectively makes the tech companies government actors. One could try to explain this argument in more detail, but it wouldn’t make any more sense.
Portraying himself as a defender of free speech is particularly rich for Trump, because he has long been an unabashed opponent of First Amendment protections for others. As a private citizen, he often sued reporters for statements they made about him; as a candidate, he called for changing libel laws to make defamation claims easier. As president[When occupying Wacko House], he sought to use the Justice Department to pursue his critics.
Throughout his career, Trump has often threatened to sue and even filed lawsuits, but the litigation goes nowhere — not necessarily because of any problems with the merits, but because the downsides for Trump outweigh the benefits […]. In the discovery phase of the suit against these tech companies, should it go forward, defendants could demand information about Trump’s actions on January 6 and whether he incited the insurrection that day. Trump has prudently avoided disclosing much about what he did that day, and there’s no way he’d speak about the fiasco for a doomed lawsuit.
Virginia man Fi Duong already faces charges for his minor role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. But he may be in more trouble for his actions since Jan. 6, after the FBI infiltrated his “Bible study” group in which participants talked about surveilling the Capitol, making Molotov cocktails, and creating “a semi-autonomous region” in Virginia.
[…] ”How do we feel about an Intel run around the Capitol tonight?” the FBI said one group member wrote in the chat. “Fewer of them out. Posture may be lowered. Good opportunity to expose weaknesses.”
On another occasion, the FBI agent saw cases of glass bottles and heard Duong and another group member talk about using them to make Molotov cocktails. Duong and the agent discussed plans for testing the as-yet-unmade explosives, but did not follow through.
[…] it’s relevant that Duong has not yet been charged for any of this. But Duong already participated, in however minor a way, in a historic act of domestic terrorism, and the FBI does have to take seriously the threat that new groups will emerge from that day, emboldened by the Trump mob’s ability to storm the Capitol and overwhelm police in doing so.
Far-right terrorism is a major threat in the U.S. today. There are secretive militias plotting violence. One fascist group is committing vandalism and marching on major cities. Extremist dreams of reconfiguring the states to give them new territory are gaining steam. And the attack on the Capitol was driven by organized conspiracies from groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. In that environment, a group with members stockpiling weapons, discussing how to make and test explosives, and doing “an Intel run around the Capitol” has to be taken seriously.
The private contractor managing the Fort Bliss prison camp near El Paso, Texas, is a fire and water damage repair company with absolutely zero experience in child welfare, two federal workers who volunteered there have revealed in a shocking whistleblower report. The document, released by a whistleblower advocacy organization, comes just weeks after nearly 20 children revealed disturbing conditions at the unlicensed camp.
[…] “they were eyewitnesses to daily instances of gross mismanagement specifically endangering public health and safety,” including Servpro staff “routinely” waking up children by blasting loud music. The report said that if kids weren’t getting up quickly enough, staff would blast a bullhorn siren at them. But while both reported what they saw to both Health and Human Services (HHS) management and its watchdog, “no remedial action was taken while they were at Fort Bliss.”
Laurie Elkin and Justin Mulaire, both attorneys who volunteered at the site from mid-May to the beginning of June, said in the report that crowded conditions, “combined with the vast size of the tents, put at-risk children at even greater risk.” Sandstorms in the region naturally resulted in filthy conditions, yet the whistleblowers said children were not regularly provided with clean bedding or clothing. “Although many children were housed in these tents for as long as two months (or more), it appeared their bedding was never washed; many beds were visibly dirty.”
Like noted in court testimonials submitted by 17 children last month, children would go lengthy times without being able to speak with an adult. “Ms. Elkin and Mr. Mulaire witnessed no communication between case managers and children under their care for sometimes weeks at a time,” GAP said. “Many children’s cases slipped through the cracks causing unnecessary, additional traumatization.” But the groups said that “[p]erhaps the single greatest problem observed by Ms. Elkin and Mr. Mulaire was the use of wholly unsuitable contract staff.”
The report said that the two “learned that the contractor providing direct supervision of the children in the dormitory tents—Servpro—is a fire and water damage repair company.” It appears most of the staff also didn’t know Spanish or any indigenous languages spoken by the children. “Many of the Servpro staff’s t-shirts bore the Servpro corporate logo found on the internet, with some including the corporate slogan: ‘As if it never happened,’” the report continued. Good when it comes to fire and water damage repair, absolutely terrifying when it comes to children. […]
The reality on the ground is likely much higher because states and private labs are taking weeks to report testing results to the CDC.
The more-transmissible Delta coronavirus variant is believed to be significantly more widespread than the current federal projections, according to two senior Biden administration health officials with knowledge of the situation.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data released late Tuesday shows the Delta strain accounted for more than 51 percent of new Covid-19 cases from June 20 to July 3. But the reality on the ground is likely much higher because states and private labs are taking weeks to report testing results to the CDC, the officials said.
“It is everywhere now,” one of the officials said, adding that recent data shows the Pfizer Covid vaccine works well against the Delta variant. “The risk really is in the unvaccinated community. We’re starting to see more and more people get sick and need medical attention.”
Covid-19 hospitalizations are up more than 40 percent over the last two weeks in Arkansas, Iowa and Nevada. And emerging evidence from a repository of genetic sequences compiled by Scripps Research’s Outbreak.info suggests that the Delta strain accounted for as much as two-thirds of new Covid cases nationwide over the past two weeks. The site notes the data “may not represent the true prevalence of the mutations in the population.”
[…] “I am a little surprised how quickly Delta has become widespread,” said Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health. “We’re one week into July and it is everywhere. It suggests that it is far, far more contagious than the Alpha variant. It makes me nervous … how contagious it is and how quickly it has spread.” […]
Biden’s accelerated vaccine rollout has saved over 1 million people from being hospitalized & hundreds of thousands of lives based on a new Yale study.
This is exactly what they told us rightwingers, once they took over the government in ‘The Handmaid’s Tale,’ were going to do, to the country, they would force you to put things in your body that you didn’t want. They had full control of your body, you no longer had dominion over your body!
Commentary:
OK, first of all, the vaccine is voluntary, has always been voluntary, will always be voluntary. We should say that, just as a base line.
We should also note the obvious elephant in the room, which is that wingnuts like Tucker and his guest Charlie Kirk actually really do want to control people’s bodies by forcing them to carry fetuses growing in their bodies to term.
But aside from all that!
We are sure Tucker has seen “The Handmaid’s Tale.” It’s a very popular show! Tucker may not be clear on who are the heroes and who are the villains, of course. On the show, and in the book, the theocratic male Christian government requires women it considers sinful, but who are yet fertile, to endure rape by white Christian men in order that they may become pregnant and provide children for the white Christian men and their white Christian wives. Tucker thinks vaccines are just like that. How little regard must he have for women and their bodies to make that argument? And how little regard must his viewers have in order to watch it?
And again, white conservative men like Tucker […] LITERALLY WANT TO FORCE PREGNANT PEOPLE TO CARRY FETUSES INSIDE THEIR BODIES UNTIL THEY FORCE THEM TO GIVE BIRTH.
Meanwhile over here in Reality World, liberals and progressives and moderates and conservatives who don’t eat paste […] understand that the vaccines are safe and effective and give people a really important layer of protection against dying of COVID or getting COVID and giving it to their old grandma, who then dies of it. And they understand that they’re voluntary!
[…] Before Tucker had his freak-out about Joe Biden forcing him to get pregnant with vaccines, Charlie Kirk […] whined that college students were going to have to live in a form of “medical apartheid,” in response to colleges requiring students to be vaccinated. And Turning Point USA […] is gonna FIGHT BACK.
Seriously:
KIRK: It’s almost this apartheid-style open-air hostage situation, like oh you can have your freedom back if you get the jab. This is unacceptable, we’re going to fight back against it.
TUCKER: That’s exactly right.
[…] It’s a truly outrageous comparison, but it’s important to remember that as known conservative white male idiots, Kirk’s and Tucker’s definitions of “apartheid” are probably “something that oppressed entitled white boys like me,” just like their definitions of “critical race theory” are likely no deeper than “people telling truths that question white racists’ supremacy and make them mad.”
Thoughts and prayers for both of these morons, obviously.
Former president Donald Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, N.J., charged the Secret Service nearly $10,200 for guest rooms used by his protective detail during Trump’s first month at the club this summer, newly released spending records show.
The records — released by the Secret Service in response to a public-records request — show that the ex-president has continued a habit he began in the first days of his presidency: charging rent to the agency that protects his life.
Since Trump left office in January, U.S. taxpayers have paid Trump’s businesses more than $50,000 for rooms used by Secret Service agents, records show.
The Washington Post reported previously that Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club — where he lived from January, when he left the White House, to early May — charged the Secret Service more than $40,000 so that agents could use a room near Trump. […]
New reporting on the NSA, Russia, and Tucker Carlson
It was just last week when Fox News’ Tucker Carlson claimed on the air that the National Security Agency was “monitoring” his electronic communications, as part of a scheme to take his show “off the air.” The host offered no proof, but several congressional Republicans rallied behind him — with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) even asking Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calf.) to launch some kind of probe into the odd allegations.
As NBC News reported, the NSA took the unusual step of issuing a written statement, explaining that Carlson “has never been an intelligence target of the Agency and the NSA has never had any plans to try to take his program off the air. NSA has a foreign intelligence mission. We target foreign powers to generate insights on foreign activities that could harm the United States.”
NBC News’ report added, “The conservative host has a history of making false or exaggerated claims.”
It’s against this backdrop that Axios moved the ball forward with this overnight report:
Tucker Carlson was talking to U.S.-based Kremlin intermediaries about setting up an interview with Vladimir Putin shortly before the Fox News host accused the National Security Agency of spying on him, sources familiar with the conversations tell Axios…. Those sources said U.S. government officials learned about Carlson’s efforts to secure the Putin interview. Carlson learned that the government was aware of his outreach — and that’s the basis of his extraordinary accusation….
It’s important to emphasize that none of this has been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News. What’s more, Axios’ report added that the outlet has not confirmed whether any communications from Carlson were actually intercepted.
That said, if Axios’ sources are correct, a plausible picture would come into focus: the Fox News host may have been in communication with a Kremlin official who was under surveillance. Under such a scenario, the NSA wasn’t monitoring Carlson’s communications; it was monitoring the communications of the person Carlson was talking to.
If you connected with a member of Vladimir Putin’s team, the NSA would probably be aware of that, too. It would not, however, be proof of an NSA plot to derail your professional career.
It also wouldn’t warrant a congressional investigation or weird partisan conspiracy theories.
A Washington Post analysis added this morning, “Almost immediately, [last night’s Axios report] was used to argue that Carlson had been proved right, as though the salient question was simply whether Carlson might have had communications collected by the NSA and not that he had alleged a government plot to submarine his television show. It was the villagers rising to the defense of the boy who cried wolf by pointing out that, in fact, wolves do exist. Fine, but that’s not really the point.”
What’s also striking is the familiarity of the circumstances. Donald Trump and his team have spent years insisting that U.S. intelligence agencies “spied on” his 2016 campaign, and when pressed for proof, Republicans point to instances in which members of Team Trump were in communication with their Russian allies.
But again, this wasn’t because anyone was spying on the Trump campaign, it was because U.S. intelligence agencies were spying on Russians — whom Team Trump was chatting with before taking office four years ago.
If the reporting is correct, and something similar happened to Carlson, it wouldn’t be shocking in the slightest.
Perhaps the better question is who reached out to the Fox News host in the first place and why?
The good news is that Wisconsin Republicans do not intend to duplicate Arizona Republicans’ utterly bonkers election “audit.” The bad news is that GOP officials in Wisconsin are pursuing a related course that’s nearly as misguided. The Associated Press reported the other day:
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos plans to pay former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman $44,000 to lead a probe of 2020 presidential election results in Wisconsin. Vos announced in May that he plans to hire three retired police officers to review the election. He announced at the state Republican convention on June 26 that Gableman will oversee the investigation. The Assembly chief clerk’s office on Friday released a contract between Gableman and Vos that calls for paying Gableman $11,000 in taxpayer dollars every month between July and October.
Wisconsin’s Republican state Assembly speaker is also paying retired police officers nearly $20,000 — again at taxpayer expense — to assist with the “investigation.”
The obvious problem with the endeavor is that there’s no good reason to investigate Wisconsin’s election results in the first place. GOP officials may not have liked the voters’ verdict — President Biden narrowly won the state — but there is no evidence of impropriety. Going fishing for evidence appears to be the latest in a series of Republican efforts to undermine public confidence in the system.
[…] GOP officials in the state tapped Gableman to oversee the effort, despite the fact — or more accurately, because of the fact — that the retired judge became a “Stop the Steal” activist who told the public the 2020 election wasn’t “honest.”
This is not the direction Republicans would’ve gone if they intended to have a credible examination.
Gableman will be working alongside a former police officer who was previously banned from getting anywhere near Wisconsin polling sites because he was caught distributing a self-published report full of bogus allegations about voter fraud.
[…] Postscript: In case this weren’t quite enough, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel also reported this week that a random Wisconsin man who doesn’t have any official responsibilities at all is conducting his own personal examination by making a series of copies of ballots in counties he was reluctant to identify. What could possibly go wrong?
Rep. Lauren Boebert appears to be getting jealous of all that sweet, sweet attention Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is getting … for comparing public health officials to Nazis. […]
“Biden has deployed his Needle Nazis to Mesa County,” she tweeted. “The people of my district are more than smart enough to make their own decisions about the experimental vaccine and don’t need coercion by federal agents. Did I wake up in Communist China?”
As a description of people going door to door with information to help people make informed decisions, connections to vaccination appointments, and in some cases the offer of in-home vaccination, this is blindingly dishonest. Polling and research has found that many people aren’t necessarily opposed to being vaccinated, but they do want more information or need convenience and reassurance that it won’t cost them anything. This is an effort to do just that.
It should not need to be spelled out, but just in case: Offering all people public health information and free vaccination can in no way be compared to sending people to death camps because they were Jewish. That is horrific.
But it’s also pretty special to have a Republican ranting about government coercion, when Republicans in state after state have passed mandatory ultrasound laws for women seeking abortions. Republicans routinely force women to have one medically unnecessary intimate medical procedure to be allowed to make their own health care decisions, so they cannot talk about “coercion” in this context.
As for the Nazi talk, this is a chance for House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to show he meant it when, after Greene compared mask rules to Nazism, he said “Americans must stand together to defeat anti-Semitism and any attempt to diminish the history of the Holocaust. Let me be clear: the House Republican Conference condemns this language.” […]
Wonkette: Tennessee Moms Have Found The Critical Race Theory, And It Is Ruby Bridges’ Children’s Book!
A rightwing Tennessee group has filed a complaint with the state over the Williamson County School District’s use of, among other books, Ruby Bridges Goes to School: My True Story, a children’s book about the integration of New Orleans schools in 1960. It’s written by Ruby Bridges herself, who at the age of six was the first Black student to attend her previously all-white elementary school. The complaint was filed by the recently formed Tennessee chapter of “Moms For Liberty,” and claims that the books all violate Tennessee’s new law against teaching “critical race theory” in schools.
So much for all the rightwing claims that such laws will still protect the accurate teaching of history, huh? When Ruby Bridges went to her first day of first grade, she was screamed at by racist mobs. But the book she wrote about her experiences is apparently too dangerous for second-graders in 2021.
Should we mention that the book has been used for years with no previous complaints, and that parents and teachers praise the reading curriculum it’s part of, called “Wit & Wisdom,” for challenging and engaging kids? Oddly, the first complaints came this year, as the Right ramped up its war on any discussion of race in schools.
We’ll look a bit more closely at the formal complaint in a moment, but you get a pretty good sense of why the Angry White Moms object to the book from this June 11 story in the Nashville Tennessean. At a May meeting of the Williamson County Commission’s education committee, Robin Steenman, the ringleader of the county’s chapter of Moms For Censorship, explained why dear little children mustn’t read this dangerous story about a Civil Rights hero who’s still very much with us (heck, she’s on Instagram).
Steenman said that the mention of a “large crowd of angry white people who didn’t want Black children in a white school” too harshly delineated between Black and white people, and that the book didn’t offer “redemption” at its end.
The Mad Moms also complained about several other books about civil rights, complaining that the teachers’ guides include all sorts of inflammatory words for grammar exercises, like “injustice,” “unequal,” “inequality,” “protest,” “marching,” and “segregation,” any one of which we suppose could cause children to melt into a puddle.
The formal complaint about the reading curriculum objects that actual historic photos in Ruby Bridges’s book will be dangerous for young readers […]
Pages 2-3 depict photographs of a neighborhood sign that reads “WE WANT WHITE TENANTS IN OUR WHITE COMMUNITY” and a smiling white boy holding a sign that says “We wont [sic] go to school with Negroes.” […]
You can go see other ridiculous claims the complaint makes about a related book about Bridges, again by a direct participant in her story. Child psychologist Robert Coles had volunteered to help Bridges and her family during the integration struggle, and later wrote about Bridges and other kids who integrated schools for The Atlantic. In 1995, he wrote the acclaimed children’s book The Story of Ruby Bridges, and don’t you go thinking that it’s an inspiring story about resilience or any of that! You see, it’s designed to tell children that white people are rude and unfair, and even Ruby’s prayer is very, very dangerous, somehow: The last page of the book depicts Ruby praying for God to forgive the (white) “mob,” because they don’t know what they’re doing. So You could forgive them, just like You did those folks a long time ago when they said terrible things about You.”
That prayer, the Moms explain, is in fact promoting race hatred because it makes “a direct comparison between white people and those that crucified Jesus.” […]
Finally, the Coles book is sure to traumatize children because one lesson suggests teachers write their own narrative “from Ruby’s perspective,” which is some CRT brainwashing torture for sure, “in essence inflicting the psychological distress of Ruby’s experience onto present day students. It furthermore instructs students to role play Ruby’s experience.”
God forbid children learn empathy, because the real agenda is to make white moms go on Glenn Beck’s radio show to talk about how children are being subjected to distress and to think white people crucified Jesus […]
Whatever you do, don’t mention that Robert Coles has, since then, gone on to be a distinguished professor at Harvard, because that’s really the nail in his coffin. […]
In conclusion, shame on schools for teaching actual history as written for children by the people who were there. […] Isn’t America a wonderful place where everything is good now, and no one needs to dig up all that sad stuff from the past?
But it’s also pretty special to have a Republican ranting about government coercion, when Republicans in state after state have passed mandatory ultrasound laws for women seeking abortions. Republicans routinely force women to have one medically unnecessary intimate medical procedure to be allowed to make their own health care decisions, so they cannot talk about “coercion” in this context.
Among other coercive interference with those who want to “make their own decisions” about their bodies. People who want to have gay sex. Women and girls who want to use contraception. People who want to use puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and surgery to live their identity, to choose their own name and bathroom. People working in meatpacking plants who want to avoid exposure to a deadly virus. Immigrants whose periods they monitored. Poor people who don’t want lead in their paint or their pipes. People who don’t want their doctors working in league with businesses to intentionally addict them to opioids. Black women who want to survive pregnancy. Athletes who want to protest with their bodies during the national anthem. People in the countries the US has invaded or where it backs oligarchic rule. People working in sweatshops. People who don’t want their water, air, and soil poisoned or dangerous heat, extreme storms, or drought. People who want food options not determined by government-backed corporations and racism. Retail workers, healthcare workers, flight attendants, public health and election officials, and others who don’t want their lives or those of their families threatened. People who want parental leave to care for their children. People who want access to medical care without risking bankruptcy. Kids who want science-based sex education. People who want to use drugs. People who want assisted death. Kids who don’t want to be physically abused by their school. Black people who want to live their lives without police harassment and terror. People who refuse psychiatric labels and drugs. Asylum seekers. Sex workers. Billions of nonhuman animals….
Hell, the leader of their party is a rapist who defends other rapists and sex traffickers as well as war criminals. They fucking love coercion. Their entire existence and ideology are based on it.
A heavily armed commando unit that assassinated Haiti’s president, Jovenel Moïse, was composed of 26 Colombians and two Haitian Americans, authorities have said, as the hunt goes on for the masterminds of the killing.
Moïse, 53, was fatally shot early on Wednesday at his home by what officials said was a group of foreign, trained killers, pitching the poorest country in the Americas deeper into turmoil amid political divisions, hunger and widespread gang violence.
Authorities tracked the suspected assassins on Wednesday to a house near the scene of the crime in Petionville, a northern, hillside suburb of the capital, Port-au-Prince. A firefight lasted late into the night and authorities detained a number of suspects on Thursday.
Police chief Charles Leon paraded 17 men before journalists at a news conference late on Thursday, showing a number of Colombian passports plus assault rifles, machetes, walkie-talkies and materials including bolt cutters and hammers.
“Foreigners came to our country to kill the president,” Charles said. “There were 26 Colombians, identified by their passports, and two Haitian Americans as well.”
He said 15 Colombians were captured, as well as two Haitian Americans. Three of the assailants were killed and eight remained on the run, Charles said.
Eleven of the suspects were arrested after breaking into the embassy of Taiwan in Port-au-Prince, which sits near the residence where Moïse was killed, a statement from Taiwan’s ministry of foreign affairs said.
…
Colombia’s defence minister, Diego Molano, said in a statement that preliminary information indicated that Colombians involved in the attack were retired members of the country’s military. He said Bogotá would cooperate in the investigation.
Haiti’s minister of elections and interparty relations, Mathias Pierre, identified the Haitian-American suspects as James Solages, 35, and Joseph Vincent, 55.
A state department spokesperson could not confirm if any US citizens were among those detained, but US authorities were in regular contact with Haitian officials, including investigative authorities, to discuss how the US could provide assistance.
Officials in the mostly French- and Creole-speaking Caribbean nation had said on Wednesday the assassins appeared to have spoken in English and Spanish.
…
Many people in Haiti had wanted Moïse to resign. Since taking over in 2017 he had faced calls to leave office and mass protests, first over corruption allegations and his management of the economy and then over his increasing grip on power.
On Thursday Haitians woke up to a country without a head of state, with a parliament long suspended, two rival interim prime ministers – one of whom was due to be sworn in during the coming days – and a constitutional legal vacuum after the death from coronavirus of the head of its supreme court.
That has generated confusion about who is the legitimate leader of the country of 11 million people – Joseph, who has assumed power for now, or Ariel Henry, who was appointed as prime minister by Moïse just before his death and was due to be sworn in this week.
…
Pierre, the elections minister, said on Thursday night that a presidential vote as well as a constitutional referendum that had been slated for 26 September before the assassination of Moise would go ahead as planned.
“It [the vote] was not for Jovenel Moise as president – it was a requirement to get a more stable country, a more stable political system, so I think we will continue with that,” Pierre said. He added that preparations had long been under way and millions of dollars disbursed to carry out the votes.
“I tagged along today while [DC mayor Muriel] Bowser and Fauci went door to door promoting vaccines. We heard the whole spectrum: many people already vaccinated, others with questions or lacking information, and others firmly opposed to the shots….”
WaPo link atl.
Here’s a link to the June 21 Guardian (support it if you can!) coronavirus world liveblog.
From there:
From their morning summary:
From the Guardian world liveblog:
Andrea Jain’s Peace Love Yoga: The Politics of Global Spirituality has a chapter about Yoga Day, “Made in Bharat: Yoga as Political Ritual”:
Claiming it as a protection against or treatment for COVID adds another unconscionable layer.
CNN – “Bolsonaro’s rule is ‘worse threat than coronavirus,’ say Brazilians as nation passes 500,000 deaths”:
More at the link.
Guardian world liveblog:
This thread is worth reading for the description of Elon Musk as “the vacuum tube monorail meathead” alone.
Guardian world liveblog:
I had meant to post about this earlier this month! BBC, June 5 – “Belgium’s Van Ranst: Covid scientist targeted by a far-right sniper”:
Guardian world liveblog:
What is going on in Russia?
CNN – “Supreme Court rules against NCAA, opening door to significant increase in compensation for student athletes”:
Re #8, quoted by Twitter (not sure how to cite):
“I need everyone screaming about ‘open borders’ to take a long, long look at this chart.
The actual number of people processed under normal immigration law (and not rapidly expelled back to Mexico) under Biden in 2021 never even hit half the number of people as in 2019….”
Chart atl.
Judd Legum:
Screenshots atl.
Tweet o’ the day.
These are fun – NYC mayor’s race endorsements.
Guardian – “West tightens Belarus sanctions to make Lukashenko regime ‘run dry’”:
Kevin Kruse at MSNBC – “Ted Cruz’s erroneous definition of critical race theory explains white America.”
Good news: Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) late last week signed a measure to expand curbside voting and establishing permanent vote by mail.
Link
Elie Mystal in the Nation – “How the Supreme Court Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Religious Bigotry.”
(I’m slightly more optimistic than he is due to the inherent dilemma for the conservatives that he discusses: once they set the precedent that religiously guided actions are exempt from secular laws, there’s no confining it to (their preferred forms of) Christianity.)
Sinema’s case against the filibuster isn’t getting any better
To hear Kyrsten Sinema tell it, leaving filibuster rules alone is what’s “best for our democracy.” That’s a difficult pitch to take seriously.
Dems eye new plan to circumvent Republicans on Medicaid expansion
What if progressive cities and counties in red states wanted to do Medicaid expansion on their own? A new bill would let them do exactly that.
Biden taps another official who’d been targeted by Team Trump
There’s a select group of officials who were targeted by Team Trump, but whose careers are back on track in the Biden era. That group is growing.
Why the new ‘controversy’ over Ukraine aid isn’t controversial at all
Rubio suggested Biden did the same thing Trump was impeached over in 2019. The argument is plainly ridiculous.
Dem Calls For GOPers Ouster After Latest Jan 6 Conspiracy Theory
JFC.
Trump Suggested Sending American COVID Victims To Guantanamo Early In Pandemic
Follow-up to comment 23.
Posted by readers of the article:
“The Balkan Roots of the Far Right’s ‘Great Replacement’ Theory”:
I’m amused by this line: “the [14th-century] knight Milos Obilic, who in the oral tradition is said to have killed Murad I on the battlefield but may in reality be a mythic figure invented after the fact.”
House to take big step on eliminating Trump-era rules
Researchers use high-tech graphene to detect COVID
By combining sheets of graphene with antibodies, they were able to detect changes in atomic vibrations when exposed to COVID positive samples.
Related to Lynna’s #22 – Daily Beast – “How Putin Made a Fool of Tucker Carlson”:
Wonkette: “Lindsey Graham Has Very Reasonable Bipartisan Plan To Prevent Democrats From Accomplishing Things”
Link
Trump and his CFO Allen Weisselberg stay close as prosecutors advance their case.
Washington Post link
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
There are many Covid-19 virus mini-pandemics in the Red states that have many antivaxxers.
Ironically, the antivaxxers will get vaccinated, whether they want to or not.
The hard way, by getting infected by the virus and risking death or permanent disability.
SC@25,
It’s interesting that the shift to the far right of the UK’s self-styled “Revolutionary Communist Party” began with support for Serbian nationalism in the mid-1990s, and denial of the genocide in Srebrenica, which led to a libel trial that closed their glossy magazine, “Living Marxism”. Many of the RCP’s leading members moved to the “libertarian” right, and now increasingly toward racism and authoritarianism, enthusiastically supporting Farage, Orbán, and the Johnson junta’s culture war. The exposure of their lies in the libel trial did them no long-term harm at all – they are regularly booked by the BBC for discussion programmes, for example.
“California farmworkers are out in 117 degree heat today.”
Video atl.
raven @ #31, I keep hearing about how popular Ron DeSantis is and how Florida is doing fine, but I’ve been checking the CDC numbers every day for months and Florida is consistently lagging. This month, DeSantis stopped the state’s daily reporting of COVID numbers (now only reported weekly), the reporting of COVID hospitalizations, and the reporting of county-by-county figures. He justified the move by claiming that the numbers had dropped so much that it was no longer necessary. But the state’s 7-day case rate is double the national average (45 per 100K vs. 22 per 100K; for comparison, MA’s is 8 and CT’s is 7); their 7-day death rate per 100K is also double the national average (1.2 vs. .6; for comparison, RI’s is .3, and VT hasn’t had any deaths in the past week). (The New England states are the six most vaccinated states right now.)
FL’s vaccinations, testing, and test positivity have been fair to middling for weeks. I saw a report that the Delta variant has been found in South Florida (since they’re not doing a lot of testing and likely little sequencing, it’s probably more prevalent than they know), and they’re in a hot and rainy stretch so people will likely be indoors more. Missouri, where the Delta variant has taken hold, now has a weekly case rate of 75/100K. Florida is around 44% fully vaccinated vs. Missouri’s 38%, which doesn’t strike me as a decisive difference. I hope the Delta variant isn’t able to gain a foothold there, but even without it Florida’s numbers are no cause for relaxation.
AP – “Florida county closes government building after COVID deaths”:
The Hill, yesterday – “Our climate is beyond hot”:
Around the globe.
Euro 2020 countries.
Puerto Rico.
World, Sweden, Arctic Ocean.
Update to #499 on the previous chapter, from the Guardian Euro 2020 liveblog:
So opposing discrimination isn’t political but opposing specific acts of discrimination is.
Guardian – “Obama backs Manchin’s voting rights compromise before crucial Senate vote”:
More atl.
Here’s a link to the June 22 Guardian coronavirus world liveblog.
Not political, but lovely – from the Guardian – “Joni Mitchell’s Blue: my favourite song – by James Taylor, Carole King, Graham Nash, David Crosby and more”: “As the legendary album turns 50, the musicians it inspired – and those who inspired it – tell us which track means the most to them and why.”
Mark Gevisser in the Guardian – “Hungary’s classrooms have become the new battleground for the war on ‘LGBT ideology’”:
Kelly Morales, Alex Jones’s ex-wife: “Here is my ex-husband, under investigation by the FBI speculating about getting framed for ‘killing (his) family’. This includes my kids. How on earth did Judge Livingston in Travis County, Texas not protect my vulnerable, minor kids who outcried about his threats??…”
Video clip atl.
Marina Hyde in the Guardian – “Letting in the Uefa variant could be Boris Johnson’s next own goal”:
Guardian world liveblog:
CNN – “Surviving combat only to die at home: Retired Staff Sgt. Wesley Black is picking out his coffin at 35 years old”:
Update to #42 – Guardian – “More than 60,000 fans to be allowed at Wembley for Euro 2020 semis and final”:
Federal Judge Dismisses Most Claims Againt Feds Over Clearing of Lafayette Square Last Year
June 21, 2021 KELSEY JUKAM
Sorry – here’s the link for #41.
Noga Tarnopolsky (who doesn’t thread her tweets):
“Russia has decided that Bard College, which has a study abroad program in St Petersburg for Russian language undergraduate students, ‘threatens the foundations of Russia’s constitutional order and security’. Yikes!”
Vladimir Putin is afraid of the fucking Bard College study abroad program.
Colbert’s monologue last night.
Ron Klain: “150 million Americans fully vaccinated, 70% of everyone over 30 with one shot — and more to come before July 4th.”
Houston Chronicle – “Gov. Abbott vetoes bipartisan anti dog-chain bill. Twitter responds with #AbbottHatesDogs.”:
The Intercept – “U.S. Military Training Document Says Socialists Represent “Terrorist” Ideology”:
One of the representatives asked Wray in the recent House hearing (and not for the first time) if he could name any “Black Identity Extremist” organizations. IIRC, he could not.
“Bill C-6, which would ban conversion therapy in Canada, just passed the House of Commons. (It bans advertising or collecting money for conversion therapy; and makes it illegal to force a youth to undergo that torture.)
63 MPs (half the Conservative caucus) voted against it.”
JFC.
Re: 7 (Covid-19 situation being out of hand in Russia)
Lots of Finnish soccerball fans were in St. Petersburg, and then rushed back home at once, mostly through one single border checkpoint, which was badly congested in a baking hot weather. According to the news, the authorities had to temporarily waive Covid-19 testing at the border to make traffic go more smoothly. For some weird reason, Finland is also increasingly opening travel from Russia, even though it is known that a good number of travelers carry Covid-19 and some of them have the delta variant, which is thus far barely present in Finland.
lumipuna @ #55, soccer is the new Christmas.
“Breaking News: Four Saudis who participated in the 2018 killing of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi received paramilitary training in the U.S. under a contract approved by the State Department, according to documents and people familiar with the arrangement….”
NYT link atl.
Tweet o’ the day.
“Assez fascinant de voir le recyclage du discours complotiste autour des vaccins.
Rien ne se perd, rien ne se crée, tout se transforme. Ici le conspi David Icke en 2009. (Celui qui a popularisé les reptiliens et est devenu la star des covido-complotistes britanniques)…”
Video (in English) atl.
Here in the YooKay, <Ahref=”https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/22/no-10-says-g7-summit-not-to-blame-for-rise-in-cornwalls-covid-cases”>the G7 is the latest superspreader event*, although it will undoubtedly be be surpassed by Euro2020.
*Note the misdirection in Johnson’s denial. He says the delegates were all tested. The huge numbers of police, media and others brough to the area by the event were not.
Fed research: Trump’s trade tariffs led to losses in billions:
Follow-up to @73(and @74, both previous thread), Biafra war criminal and current Nigerian “president”, Muhammadu Buhari, threw a snit after being temporarily banned by twittering, and decreed it “illegal” to access twittering.
Court restrains Nigeria from prosecuting Twitter users:
I’m unclear on that the so-called “core issue” is (at least as the court sees it).
SC@7, “What is going on in Russia [with Covid-19]?”
The Delta variant, apparently, piling in on top of low vaccination levels and no lockdowns, Russia registers highest daily COVID death toll since February:
There are currently c.14,000 hospitialised cases in Moscow alone, and “[Mayor Sergei] Sobyanin has attributed the infection spike to the Delta variant.”
Aid to Palestinians promised by US blocked by Republican senator:
Nihilism is a risk factor for Covid-19? Focus origin research on nihilistic bats!
James Corden, No Lockdowns Anymore w/ Ariana Grande & Marissa Jaret Winokur (video).
Guardian – “Hong Kong’s first ‘national security’ trial begins without jury”:
I mentioned on I think another thread that I recently read Terror to the Wicked: America’s First Trial by Jury That Ended a War and Helped to Form a Nation:
(Interestingly, the author discusses how several of the people involved with the trial had connections to the humanist-leaning Kent, a “hotbed of progressive thought” at the time.)
blf @ #63, no, my question was broader and more political.
Here’s a link to the Guardian coronavirus world liveblog.
From their morning summary:
The Onion – “De Blasio: ‘Well, Well, Well, Not So Easy To Find A Mayor That Doesn’t Suck Shit, Huh?’”
(One of the first movies I remember seeing as a kid – on TV, probably PBS – was the 1957 film Beau James. I think about it whenever NYC mayoral politics comes up.)
Guardian world liveblog:
If you’re thinking about going to Florida for college, think again.
In his continued push against the “indoctrination” of students, Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday signed legislation that will require public universities and colleges to survey students, faculty and staff about their beliefs and viewpoints to support “intellectual diversity.”
The survey will discern “the extent to which competing ideas and perspectives are presented” in public universities and colleges, and seeks to find whether students, faculty and staff “feel free to express beliefs and viewpoints on campus and in the classroom,”
https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/2021/06/22/state-university-faculty-students-to-be-surveyed-on-beliefs/#
Raleigh News & Observer – “Nikole Hannah-Jones won’t join the UNC-Chapel Hill faculty unless she gets tenure”:
timgueguen @ #73, I love how my post @ #74 followed yours. Rightwing cancellations abound on public college campuses.
From today’s DN! headlines:
Talia Lavin at MSNBC – “The right-wing freakout about ‘critical race theory’ began in the 1960s.”
Guardian podcast – “Police corruption and the unsolved murder of Daniel Morgan”:
I hurt my back and have had to limit my time at the keyboard. Projects that earn money take precedence, so I’ve been somewhat absent on this thread. Many thanks to SC and others who are always there to keep us informed.
NYT:
Supreme Court Rules Against Union Recruiting on California Farms
By Adam Liptak, June 23, 2021
So sorry to hear about your back, Lynna! Get well soon.
Guardian world liveblog:
First Dog on the Moon in the Grauniad, Who does Unesco think they are? Listing the Great Barrier Reef as ‘in danger’! After all we have done for it! (cartoon): “We are not angry, we are disappointed. And angry”.
And, Do you want me to parade vaccinated old people around the place just for your benefit? (cartoon): “There are six of them! As represented by these very Chiko Rolls. Say hello everyone!” (Ozland-specific but easily understood.)
And and, The double standard Scott Morrison walks past (on his way to the pub in Cornwall) is the double standard he accepts (cartoon).
What McConnell considers ‘the biggest lie’ in American politics
Of all the lines Mitch McConnell could take on his party’s voter-suppression campaign, pretending it doesn’t exist is the worst.
Not so rare if you pay attention to any Republican politicians.
Most Americans view GOP’s sham election ‘audits’ as bogus partisan stunts to undermine 2020 results
Related to Lynna@85, Michigan Republicans find no voter fraud and say Trump claims ‘ludicrous’:
SC @81, Thank you. I’m working on it.
In other news, Infrastructure week drags on, possibly toward an end to the bipartisan work group charade
blf @86, good news and bad news.
Good:
Bad:
Sheesh.
Liberal states expand voting access, creating ‘stark’ partisan divide in voting rights
More at the link.
Link
Joint Chiefs chairman clashes with GOP on race theory, ‘white rage’
Hooray for anybody who stands up against Gaetz’s stupidity.
Wonkette:
Link
NBC News:
USA Today:
Did Trump press the Justice Dept to push back against comedians?
The latest reporting on Trump pressing federal agencies to go after comedy shows is very easy to believe.
Joy Reid had asshole Christopher Rufo on her show. If a video is posted, I’ll post it in the morning. Ouch, she left marks…
Shock, the video of Joy Reid with Rufo has been been posted tonight. You may need to unmute it for audio.
Guardian – “John McAfee: antivirus entrepreneur found dead in Spanish prison”:
Guardian – “‘Painful farewell’: Hongkongers queue for hours to buy final Apple Daily edition”:
Here’s an example of protest art they feature. It’s fantastic.
Guardian – “IPCC steps up warning on climate tipping points in leaked draft report”:
In related Guardian news, “‘The water is coming’: Florida Keys faces stark reality as seas rise”:
Much more atl. I mentioned Jeff Goodell’s The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized [sic] World here a little while ago. Much of it is about Florida.
Here’s a link to the Guardian June 24 coronavirus world liveblog.
From their morning summary:
Also:
A few podcasts:
New Books Network – “Roundtable on Medieval Conspiracy Theories”:
New podcast series Nixon at War, of which the first two full episodes are available – this is the first – “October Surprise”:
Maintenance Phase – “Oprah Winfrey & ‘John of God'”:
Nancy Pelosi just announced that they’ll be forming a select committee to investigate the January 6th attack.
Guardian world liveblog:
For context, unless the US has some random spike in cases today, this is likely to be several thousand more cases than in the US. The UK has a population of 67 million while the US’s is 328 million.
Shocking update to lumipuna’s #55 – Guardian world liveblog:
Re: SC 97
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236323/episode/part-one-john-mcafee-is-not-30546784/
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236323/episode/part-two-john-mcafee-is-not-30561914/
SC @102, I was glad to see that Pelosi took the opportunity to say that she was saddened by the fact that she had to form that select committee. She laid the blame squarely where it belongs, on Republican senators who voted against the bipartisan commission.
Pelosi made the point that Democrats had given Republicans everything they wanted, including the makeup of the commission, the timing of the commission, etc. However, she would not let Republicans turn the commission into an investigation into Black Lives Matter. The commission’s job was supposed to be an investigation into the events of January 6 and what led to those events. January 6th, not Black Lives Matter.
Follow-up to Nerd’s comments 95 and 96.
Cross posted from PZ’s thread.
One thing Chris Rufo is good at: talking over and talking around the interviewer. Then he claims that it is the interviewer’s fault because she won’t let him spew his talking points when he is actually refusing to answer the questions.
Joy Reid does reveal Chris Rufo for what he is, but it takes a sustained effort to do so.
Giuliani suspended from practicing law in New York over bogus election fraud claims
“We conclude that respondent’s conduct immediately threatens the public interest and warrants interim suspension from the practice of law, pending further proceedings,” the state appeals court wrote.
OAN is ready for ‘tens of thousands’ of Americans to be executed in support of Trump’s Big Lie
Re SC at 104:
Leading with the most important detail :)
I understand it’s too early to get the sequencing results on how many of these cases are delta, but some cases of the variant have been detected among the handful of infections that originated from Russia earlier this month. I also just learned that delta does already constitute a substantial (and growing) portion of the relatively few daily cases we have in Finland.
Now, there’s growing concern on Finnish media, and everyone up to prime minister is urging the returned football fans to isolate themselves (which is generally recommended for people entering from high risk countries) and get tested and re-tested after a few days. Authorities are trying to track people from travel bookings and border crossing logs.
There’s one small problem with regard to isolation and testing: This weekend is Midsummer, a major holiday. People will want to party and get drunk (though often it’s just with their own family) and retreat to the countryside (with poor testing access, especially during holidays).
Quoted in Lynna’s #109:
!!!!!!
Mark Sumner, who wrote the piece, adds in the comments:
That was the vibe I immediately got watching the clip. Honestly, the network increasingly has the feel of Russian state TV.
Brony @ #105, thanks for those links! I’d listened to the Dr. Phil episodes and a few others, but hadn’t yet heard those. Just listened to them while I cooked/cleaned. I think she’s my favorite guest.
lumipuna @ #110:
I noticed that. Like, “Getting COVID wasn’t even the worst part of their Euro 2020 experience.”
Noooooooooooooooooooooo!
CNN – “Biden campaign workers and ex-state lawmaker sue ‘Trump Train’ members involved in dangerous Texas highway incident”:
More atl.
NBC News:
NBC News:
NY Times:
Link/a>>
Catching them and making them pay:
Link
The religious leaders are still claiming that they didn’t do anything wrong:
Democratic states’ attorneys general take on Louis DeJoy over planned mail slowdowns
“Slidden”?
Follow-up to comment 117.
Disgraced televangelist says America has ‘slidden’ backwards under Biden
Day 12 of Netanyahu holed up in the official residence and bizarrely pretending he’s still PM.
Noga Tarnopolsky:
JOH is also a fake president who won’t leave, but in Honduras they can rig elections.
: Hank Kunneman Likens Mike Lindell to John the Baptist:
Follow-up to comment 91.
Wonkette: “Fox News So Mad Gen. Milley Loves Critical Race Theory, Time To Defund The Military”
Link
Wonkette:
https://www.wonkette.com/donald-trump-is-a-rare-kind-of-stupid
Donald Trump Is A Spectacular Kind Of Stupid
https://www.wonkette.com/donald-trump-is-a-rare-kind-of-stupid
My post was rejected by PZ’s filters. Not sure why. The article is good.
Here’s an excerpt:
Follow-up, of sorts, to Lynna@122, from The Onion, Conservative Man Tearfully Informs Family Critical Race Theory Has Spread To His Liver:
Inside the extraordinary effort to save Trump from covid-19.
Washington Post link
His illness was more severe than the White House acknowledged at the time. Advisers thought it would alter his response to the pandemic. They were wrong.
“its hard to describe how completely unhinged conservative media has gotten, this is all from the last 24 hours…”
Screenshots atl.
US arrests 500th suspect in relation to
Capitol riot[insurrection]:Guardian – “Brazil’s inquiry into Covid disaster suggests Bolsonaro committed ‘crimes against life’”:
We need this in the US.
Guardian – “Outrage after Pakistan PM Imran Khan blames rape crisis on women”:
Here’s a link to the June 25 Guardian coronavirus world liveblog.
From there:
KG, I don’t know how they can still expect you to travel to London under these circumstances.
Dave Levitan:
MMFA:
“Tucker Carlson: Critical race theory will lead to the genocide of white Americans”: “Carlson: ‘How do we save this country before we become Rwanda?'”
“Tucker Carlson on General Mark Milley: ‘He’s not just a pig, he’s stupid'”: “‘It’s interesting that he doesn’t read white supremacists to understand white supremacy. Why not?'”
Tucker Carlson’s affect – the sustained rage punctuated by sudden bursts of maniacal laughter – is extremely odd.
Guardian world liveblog:
CNN – “Former police officer Derek Chauvin set to be sentenced for the murder of George Floyd”:
The DoJ is making an announcement that they’re suing Georgia over its new voting restrictions.
Guardian world liveblog:
More re #136:
Guardian world liveblog:
Fertilizing all the bad stuff: Republican leaders advise members to ‘lean into the culture war’
Why is the Republican Study Committee urging members to “lean into the culture war”? Because the party believes voters share their post-policy instincts.
Lucy with the football: Why Graham is rejecting a bipartisan deal he helped negotiate
Lindsey Graham helped negotiate a bipartisan agreement on infrastructure. Now that the deal is in place, he’s ready to oppose it.
Pence: Overturning election results would’ve been ‘un-American’
It’s notable that Pence is implicitly conceding that the step Trump wanted him to take on Jan. 6 was “un-American.”
And there’s this from the Associated Press:
I have questions.
AP – “Nearly all COVID deaths in US are now among unvaccinated”:
@SC 126, 133
It looks like a combination of riling up the extremists with DARVO (at no point does Carlson show objective threats), and maybe role-modeling moments of loss of control through mania?
Laughter is used to, maybe “cancel out” negative feeling works. “Skip to a different motivational track” might work too. These ideas need lots of non-violent confrontation. I have on more than one occasion turned down an offer to fight from Trumpkins, telling them that it’s a social confrontation and they will have to get their physical aggression out on someone else.
Re: Me 145
“Metaphorically feeling: Comprehending textural metaphors activates somatosensory cortex”
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0093934X12000028
There’s some stretching here since this is in the somatosensory (skin) senses (haha, skin, stretching), but I think if someone uses violent imagery they are already part way there.
This is tricky because I can’t tell someone experiencing violence not to use violent imagery, but I try to keep mine under tight control.
Carlson could just be trying to look like he/they are too unstable to mess with too. If so it’s another posture to be called out while continuing to point out the lies.
Yesterday’s tweet o’ the day.
Fun responses to this tweet.
I have an example of my 147 too.
Early in the pandemic when Trump was deflecting blame onto hospitals, I forget the specific BS, one of my facebook friends decided to make a “heads rolling” comment directed at health care workers. I told my “friend” that if they went after health care workers it would be their head we would be going after.
What followed was a private message where they threatened to come down from FL to AZ to fight me. They insisted they were a “psycho” and would really do it. I laughed at the suggestion and told them they can do what they want but they would just end up in jail because I would not fight them, and psychos did not have an advantage with oppositional behavior like people with tourette syndrome did (I’m still thinking about if that TS aside was useful, I think yes because it negates the other person’s political use of mental illness).
They defriended me and I have not heard from them since.
Brony @ #s 145-147, interesting thoughts (and fascinating link @ #146!). “Maybe role-modeling moments of loss of control through mania?” Mania feels right, but I have the sense that it’s more involuntary (especially here). My speculation of the moment is that it could be a sort of reflexive fear/defense reaction, particularly since it seems to happen when his cruelty towards less powerful people is being confronted by authority figures. He tries to play it off as mockery or contempt, but it doesn’t come across that way.
@SC 151
I think I am assuming towards knowing actions in my previous comments. I’ll think about the responses being involuntary.
In Georgia, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported yesterday that a state judge dismissed most of a lawsuit “seeking a deep inspection of Fulton County absentee ballots from last year’s presidential election, a review pursued by voters trying to find fraud. Superior Court Judge Brian Amero’s ruling jeopardizes the prospects for the ballot inspection to continue, though a plaintiff in the lawsuit said he believes it will soon move forward.”
Good news: Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont (D) this week signed into a law a measure restoring the right to vote for people on parole.
Josh Marshall:
Link
The tweet was from Garrett Haake.
Oliver Willis:
Brony @ #152, it could totally be intentional. I’m no expert and I can’t even verbalize what about it specifically reads as involuntary. It’s like he’s trying to project “Look how transgressive I am! I’m saying Mark Milley is a cowardly, stupid pig no one respects! See how much contempt I have?!” But the exaggerated, manic speech and the giggling make him seem more skittish than genuinely contemptuous.
Derek Chauvin has been sentenced to 22 1/2 years. He’ll serve a minimum of 15 years.
Sen. Schatz: “Hey media folks: You don’t have to pretend to believe that Republicans haven’t been reading the news for the last two months when legislative leaders said explicitly that we were moving on two tracks. You don’t have to pretend to believe that they are surprised or angry.”
NYT:
NYT link and depressing photos atl.
Guardian – “How trans kids’ rights are under attack in the US – video”:
5-minute video atl.
This is weird.
SC @157:
Tucker Carlson aired quite a bit of General Milley speaking, uninterrupted. The result was that the stark contrast between lightweight/possibly-out-of-control Tucker and serious/thoughtful/intelligent Gernal Milley was highlighted. Tucker shot himself in the foot … even without the occasional strangeness in his delivery.
Humor/satire from Andy Borowitz:
New Yorker link
“Breaking on @MSNBC: The Trump Organization is expected to be hit with criminal charges as soon as next week by Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance’s office in a case that Trump attorneys say is tied to tax evasion-related conduct, multiple sources tell @NBCNews.”
Joy Reids best of the week: Sesame Street, of PBS, with the first married same sex couple.
DOJ Quotes GA Republicans’ Own Words Against Them To Challenge Voting Law
New Details Suggest Senior Trump Aides Knew Jan 6 Rally Could Get Chaotic
More details are available at the link.
Proposed ‘Abolition Amendment’ would close a major 13th Amendment loophole
More at the link.
Link
Link
Childish feuds and hurt feelings in the rightwing media circus. Schadenfreude moment. Let them fight each other.
@SC 152
There are experts here?
In all seriousness looking at impulsive and chosen possibilities is worth it because I think that’s a variable that is useful when concretely identified. Lots of people probably don’t consciously try to determine the difference, (as long as the act of looking at the difference isn’t trying to be used as an excuse, no implications, I just like to note complicating factors).
The system 1/system 2 distinction is probably useful here.
Link
Engineer warned of ‘major structural damage’ years before Florida condo collapsed.
Washington Post link
More at the link.
Wonkette: “Kevin McCarthy Tells Cop Injured In Jan. 6 Riot He Can Only Condemn Republican Lies In Secret”
Link
Wonkette: “It’s Too Damn Hot”
Link
Entertaining videos are available at the link.
Now booming on Moscow’s black market: Fake vaccine certificates.
Washington Post link
What Britney Spears has endured would not have happened to a male star.
Washington Post link
Follow-up to comment 174.
The death toll in the Florida condo collapse has risen to 9. Police have released the names of four victims of the collapse: Stacie Dawn Fang, 54; Antonio Lozano, 83; Gladys Lozano, 79; and Manuel LaFont, 54.
More than 150 people are still unaccounted for.The Army Corps of Engineers has been called in to help rescue efforts.
Dispossessed, Again: Climate Change Hits Native Americans Especially Hard
New York Times link
Many Native people were forced into the most undesirable areas of America, first by white settlers, then by the government. Now, parts of that marginal land are becoming uninhabitable.
The polls have just closed here in the 2nd round of “the regions” elections here in France. According to France24, Live: Polls close in second round of French regional elections (which is a “live blog” but not a patch on the Grauniad’s):
Translation: Exit polling suggests teh le penazis decisively lost in my region. Since this was the nazi’s only realistic hope of a “win”, the apparent (decisive) lost is not only reassuring, but means they still “control” nothing more than a few locales (Perpignan, here on the Mediterranean coast, near the border with Spain, perhaps being the most significant (plus a disproportionate horde in the EU Parliament)).
blf @181, “Exit polling suggests teh le penazis decisively lost in my region.” Hooray! That’s good news.
In other news: Barr Knew Election Fraud Claims Were ‘Bullshit’ But Wanted To Appease Trump
Follow-up to comment 182.
Posted by readers of the article:
Follow-up to 182 and 183.
Link
Follow-up to 182 and 183.
Link
About that heat dome:
Link
Wonkette: “Australian Christian School Kids Get Super Creepy Romantic Advice”
Follow-up to @181, in the 2nd round election to “the regions” teh le penazis lost everywhere, and mostly went backwards. Locally, in my village, on a c.35% turnout, teh le penazis got c.44% and the conservatives c.56%, almost identical to the vote in the region as a whole. As has almost always been the case when teh le penazis are in contention, the poorly-placed other parties withdraw to give the best-placed non-nazi a clear run, a tactic called front républicain, which apparently “dates back to 1885, when the monarchist and Bonapartist opposition recorded high scores in the first round of the legislative elections, and candidates who supported the Republic came together and were able to win a majority of seats.”
A snippet from the paywalled opinion column Enemies of France should not see Le Pen victories on Sunday as a sign of things to come (this was published before the 1st round a week ago, when polling suggested teh le penazis could win as many as six of the 13 regions):
Teh le penazi’s lead candidate here in Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur was Thierry Mariani (defeated by Renaud Muselier). A snippet from the paywalled article Le Pen’s far-right fails to win any areas in French regional elections:
Teh evil equine empire’s newest tactic is to invade our precious bodily fluids, Draught wines: French vineyards rediscover the power of horses:
Châteauneuf-du-Pape AOC is not a million kilometres away from my village, and its wines are commonly drunk here. I very probably have a few bottles here in the lair. Some might not have yet been emptied.
The horses and sheep have to be moved around — presumably, often by truck — but that is presumably less environmentally-damaging than a tractor.
A snippet from In science we trust:
The opinion column is a call for people to do the same about the climate disaster. A related snippet:
Arizona Republicans strip power from Democratic Sec. of State
In 2020’s wake, Republicans are focusing heavily on secretary of state offices, even stripping one Democratic official of key election-related powers.
McConnell acts as if he can call the shots on infrastructure
On infrastructure, Mitch McConnell is making absurd demands of Democratic leaders. They’d be wise to ignore him.
Huffington Post:
Commentary:
Link
Spiro Agnew’s Ghost:
https://twitter.com/SpiroAgnewGhost/status/1409355444292751365
Jessica Huseman:
https://twitter.com/JessicaHuseman/status/1409377348449828864
Barbara Comstock:
https://twitter.com/BarbaraComstock/status/1409367216617930753
Jonathan Karl:
https://twitter.com/jonkarl/status/1409361276216696832
Schooley:
Terry Dresbach:
Related to comment 194.
While undermining democracy, Trump falsely claims he’s saving it
Why is Trump undermining democracy while claiming to be its champion? Because in his mind, democracy is whatever he says it is.
Cartoon: Alien Nation
Link
Steven Beschloss:
Wonkette: “Michael Flynn Stars In QAnon Election Fraud Doc By Guy Who Thinks Aliens Did 9/11”
Link
Supreme Court will not hear transgender bathroom rights dispute, a win for Va. student who sued his school for discrimination.
Washington Post link
Canada sets record temperature of over 114 degrees amid heat wave, forecasts of even hotter weather.
Washington Post link
Cancel culture strikes again. YouTube has banned Right Wing Watch’s account.
Ooops, how silly of me. Cancel culture is only occurs when right wingers are the “victims.”
https://twitter.com/RightWingWatch/status/1409498743158812675
Toyota stands out with contributions to anti-election Republicans
Dozens of corporate PACs have donated to anti-election Republicans, but “Toyota leads by a substantial margin.”
Bits and pieces of news.
Link
GOP Claims That They Were Hoodwinked By The Tandem Infrastructure Bills Are Provably Nonsense
Link
More details, including charts and graphs, are available at the link.
‘Trump isn’t the dictator’: Wisconsin GOP inches away from Trump
Trump tried to blow up a top state lawmaker for failing to vigorously pursue his false election claims. But the attack was a dud.
I don’t think that “setback” was that rare for Trump. It seems to me like he encounters more and more such “setbacks” when he tries to bully other politicians.
House Ethics panel upholds $5,000 metal detector fine against GOP lawmaker
White House defends military strikes on Iraq-Syria border
From the Grauniad’s current States politics live blog:
The proposed bill, HR 3005 (PDF).
Follow-up to Tim’s comment 201.
Wonkette: “Christian Preacher Very Concerned About Demon-Possessed Joe Biden And His Sex-Trafficking Tunnels”
Follow-up to @201 and @210, People For the American Way Wins Reinstatement of Right Wing Watch YouTube Account (quoted in full):
And from YouTube reinstates channel devoted to exposing conservative extremism:
And a follow-up to @211, a snippet from A progressive watchdog group’s YouTube account was reinstated after it was banned and its videos were deleted:
As an aside, it seems doubtful any of the uploaded video archive was deleted (or they have since been restored).
Quoted in Lynna’s #168:
LOL.
Quoted in Lynna’s #184:
People in the media keep suggesting that this is Barr trying to make himself look better, but to me this all makes him seem even more corrupt.
SC @213, “People in the media keep suggesting that this is Barr trying to make himself look better, but to me this all makes him seem even more corrupt.”
I think that is Barr trying to make himself look better by making McConnell look even worse. The problem is that Barr doesn’t realize that it make him look even more corrupt.
Humor/satire from Andy Borowitz:
New Yorker link
NBC News:
NY Times:
Politico:
Link
Here’s a link to the June 29 Guardian coronavirus world liveblog.
From their morning summary:
Here’s the full Brazil report – “Brazil could have stopped 400,000 Covid deaths with better response, expert says.”
Also in the Guardian today – “Trump contempt for White House Covid taskforce revealed in new book.”
Guardian – “Peru dictator’s spymaster reappears to push Fujimori’s baseless fraud claims”:
Vox – “How hatred of gay people became a key plank in Hungary’s authoritarian turn”:
Much more atl. (The article strangely sidelines Putin’s demonization and persecution of LGBT people.)
Some podcasts:
QAA – “Episode 148: The Australian Prime Minister’s QAnon Friend feat Karen Stewart”:
Fever Dreams – “The Critical Race Theory Freak Out feat Brandy Zadrozny”:
Conspirituality – “57: The Storm is Mutating (w/Mike Rothschild)”:
Also, Good in Theory has an ongoing, entertaining series about Plato’s Republic.
Mehdi Hasan:
Update: “It is Day 17 of Benjamin Netanyahu’s illegal takeover of the prime minister’s official residence in Jerusalem. No, he’s not paying rent.”
Yair Rosenberg:
Video and more atl. Trump and the Republican Party have given people like this a platform.
Today’s Guardian podcast – “Matt Hancock’s downfall”:
Josh Marshall:
With effectively no concern for the facts or the public good.
“Highlights of Jan 6 select committee: Pelosi gets to pick all 13 members (will consult with McCarthy for 5 of them). Committee chair has unilateral subpoena power, a change from the independent commission which required GOP appointees’ buy-in. House to vote on committee this week”
Ron Johnson won’t curtail his reckless rhetoric on vaccines
Ron Johnson pushes a lot of nonsense, but when it comes to threatening public health, his COVID rhetoric has been especially pernicious.
Link
Link
Yesterday’s tweet o’ the day.
As climate crisis intensifies, (some) Republicans take an interest
Some Republicans no longer see blanket climate denial as a sustainable position. But until they endorse meaningful solutions, it’s not enough.
Quoted in Lynna’s #229:
Now I’m picturing reports like “I got my first shot last month, and when I woke up the next day I was dead!” In all seriousness, I looked at VAERS a while back and IIRC before you can even do a search you have to agree that you understand a disclaimer about the unverified nature of the reports and that you’ll use the system accordingly.
Quoted in Lynna’s #233:
This arbitrary limitation renders their project intellectually dishonest. Whether or not a proposed response will be adequate or effective depends on the nature of the problem, and some problems – like AGW – are radical in nature and require radical action. Global warming doesn’t give a shit about their ideology or their donors’ profits.
From today’s DN! headlines:
Guardian world liveblog:
We’ve all read about and seen the Miami condo building that collapsed.
Buildings just aren’t supposed to collapse with people in them.
The obvious question is how and why it collapsed.
It might well have to do with global warming and rising sea levels.
It turns out that the foundation that the building sat on was regularly flooded with sea water.
Sea water will cause concrete to spall and crack. It will also rust the rebar steel.
The building’s supports were all steel reinforced concrete.
If that is the case, it isn’t looking so good for any buildings close to the ocean.
Because the rising sea levels that totally aren’t happening because global warming is a hoax, are going to just keep on totally not rising because melting ice doesn’t care what you believe.
I’m sure the number is in the tens of thousands at the least.
Guardian world liveblog:
(This is a cross-post from Rudy “Nosferatu [Sr]” Giuliani stripped of NY law license at Death to Squirrels, here at FtB.)
Andrew “Nosferatu Jr” Giuliani is told to feck off — by his fellow thugs, Giuliani son gets no votes from Republican leaders in bid for New York governor (my added emboldening):
Apropos of nothing, and not at all political, lunch today was a rarity in France: Not too good. Some years ago a large (for the area / village) States-owned chain hotel opened in the village. They have a large terraced restaurant, but until recently, it never seemed busy. I also noticed the restaurant’s management / menu kept changing. All the signs of a unexceptional place: Chain hotel restaurant, never busy, never any locals, new “team” every year or so, and the adjacent terraced hotel bar is never open.
However, recently, they’ve been quite busy (even a few locals), and a friend told me they’re worth a try. So I had lunch there today. The staff were good — friendly, helpful, attentive but not intruding — the location is good, the weather was good, and the local vin was good. The food? Not so much… overambitious, I’d say — good ideas poorly executed. Certainly not worth the price (overpriced since I expect most of the hotel’s guests are on expenses).
Here’s a link to the June 30 Guardian coronavirus world liveblog.
From their morning summary:
Eric Holthaus in the Guardian – “How did a small town in Canada become one of the hottest places on Earth?”:
Guardian – “Serbian secret police chiefs face verdict over atrocities in Croatia and Bosnia”:
More atl.
Guardian – “From viral videos to Fox News: how rightwing media fueled the critical race theory panic”:
Much, much more atl. I have some issues with this piece, but I thought this portion worth highlighting.
Here’s a Slate article by Marwick and Kreiss from earlier this month – “The Conservative Disinformation Campaign Against Nikole Hannah-Jones.”
Guardian world liveblog (support the Guardian if you can!):
CNN – “House votes to remove Confederate statues and replace Roger B. Taney bust”:
It’s not entirely clear from that text, but all of the 120 votes against the resolution were from Republicans, almost all from the South. 67 Republicans voted for it and 120 voted against it.
Stop being ridiculous, Axios.
SC: “Stop being ridiculous, Axios.”
Wow, you’re funny!
This is pretty strange.
South Dakota is hiring out its National Guard to a private individual to do something in…Texas.
This looks like a clear abuse of power and abuse of the US military for GOP political purposes.
To make it even stranger, it is apparently legal.
Also, AFAIK, the National Guard has no police powers in the USA.
The Posse Comitas act says that the US military can’t be used for domestic law enforcement purposes.
TPM – “Paul Gosar Has History With Racist Influencer Nick Fuentes”:
Guardian world liveblog:
Update to #243 – Guardian – “Serbian secret police chiefs sentenced to 12 years over Bosnian war atrocities”:
“The most interesting detail about the statement of offense against Mark Grods, ANOTHER Oath Keeper cooperating with the govt, is that he was in the golf carts from the Willard Hotel (where Roger Stone was).”
Glenn Kessler, WaPo:
Screenshots and link atl.
From SC in comment 234:
Thanks for calling out the arbitrary nature of the approach those conservative legislators are taking.
I think they are just looking for a way to keep some Republican voters who do want to see action on climate change in the GOP tent. And of course, they want that sweet donor money from clueless donors to continue rolling into their coffers.
This approach is bad news for everyone. Pretending to address climate change gives them a cover-your-ass set of talking points that simply obscures the need for real action.
“Breaking: The Trump Organization and its CFO [Allen Weisselberg] are expected to be charged with tax-related crimes by Manhattan prosecutors Thursday, people familiar with the matter say…”
WSJ link atl. NBC confirmed. Weisselberg’s ex-daughter-in-law (Jennifer Weisselberg) was on MSNBC earlier and suggested that he might have been involved in illegal dealings surrounding the inauguration when Trump was occupying the Oval Office.
Lynna @ #255:
Exactly.
“BREAKING: Bill Cosby will leave prison after Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court ruled to overturn his conviction in a 2018 sexual assault case.”
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D) vetoed new voting restrictions approved by Republican state legislators.
Philadelphia Inquirer link
“This bill is ultimately not about improving access to voting or election security, but about restricting the freedom to vote,” Wolf said in a statement. “If adopted, it would threaten to disrupt election administration, undermine faith in government, and invite costly, time-consuming, and destabilizing litigation.”
Most of New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu’s (R) diversity council resigned in protest this week, pointing to the governor’s willingness to sign a new state law restricting how state employees — including public school teachers — can talk about racism. Sununu is currently weighing a possible U.S. Senate campaign next year.
HuffPost link
Tweet o’ the day.
Update on assholery and fuckery from Hair Furor: Why Trump can’t stop directing his tantrums at other Republicans
Over the last week, how many days has Trump spent lashing out at Republicans? All of them. The common thread: he expects fealty to the Big Lie.
More of the same wildly bonkers blathering from Hair Furor. One wonders when the fact that he is never happy with his underlings will sink in and the underlings will all run for the exits.
Lacking a policy agenda, GOP’s McCarthy unveils ‘task forces’
Republicans don’t have a policy agenda, but Kevin McCarthy hopes to change that with new “task forces.” There’s a reason this will almost certainly fail.
Oh, FFS.
WA lawmaker wears yellow Star of David at meeting, compares vaccine requirements to Holocaust
Photo of dumbass is available at the link.
Yeah, we know that Biden, and the U.S. government in general have not done enough to address climate change. (Understatement.) Biden commented on that recently, and he pointed out that at least his administration has taken some good first steps.
Link
Trump called for General Milley to resign.
Yeah, Trump is still simple-minded and obnoxious. This is just Hair Furor trying to jump on the anti-critical-race-theory-band-wagon while it is in motion.
The general’s recently defended studying critical race theory in the military, although the the military doesn’t exactly feature studies in that field. “So what is wrong with understanding, having some situational understanding about the country which we are here to defend?”
Hair Furor had more to say, including disparaging an upcoming book that details a shouting match he and the general reportedly got into over Milley’s refusal to lead the military in cracking down on racial justice protesters last summer. We no longer need to fact-check every one of Trump’s lies. He is a doofus, shouting into the wind. Fewer and fewer people can hear him.
Link
Lynna@264, So, I think we should organize a movement where people dress as Leprechauns and wear pink hearts green moons, etc. and tell people Walsh is just part of a big bowl of Lucky Charms.
“Housing discrimination is alive and well”: Watchdog group sues 36 realtors and landlords in New York
More at the link, including a summary of the legal battles.
snarkrates @268, nicely ridiculous, and therefore appropriate. :-)
In other ridiculous news made by Republicans: Wisconsin GOP Leader Chris Kapenga Believes In Trump The Father Almighty, Maker Of Heaven And Earth …
“Wisconsin Republican Senate President”???! WTF?
Inside the Capitol Riot: An Exclusive Video Investigation.
The Times analyzed thousands of videos from the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol Building to understand how it happened — and why. Here are some of the key findings.
New York Times link
Re: Lynna 262
Shorter Trump “You have to keep making more testimonial evidence to point at!”
NYT, quoted in Lynna’s #271:
This seems borderline victim-blamey, like the rioters couldn’t control themselves at the provocative sight of legislators. They, including Babbitt, were adults with agency.
Cartoon: “Meanwhile, at the Board of Elections Office”
NBC News:
NBC News:
The land was worth millions. A Big Ag corporation sold it to Sonny Perdue’s company for $250,000.
Washington Post link
More at the link.
David Fahrenthold at WaPo is reporting that the grand jury indicted Weisselberg and the Trump Organization today. He said Weisselberg is expected to turn himself in tomorrow morning. Doesn’t think they’re done.
“TONIGHT FBI/DOJ notch near-record day of new arrests/charges in Jan. 6 Capitol riots, including a key deft. charged with opening East Capitol Rotunda doors from inside, 3rd cooperating Oath Keepers in 16 co-defendant conspiracy case and Boogaloo supporter”
Respectful Insolence:
“Ivermectin is the new hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19.”
“Ivermectin is the new hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19, take 2: FLCCC conspiracies.”
The Supreme Court just finished gutting what was left of the Voting Rights Act.
Allen Weisselberg has reportedly turned himself in.
McCarthy has threatened any House Republicans who agree to serve on the January 6th select committee – potentially only Kinzinger and Cheney – with removal from their committees. (This is what he opposed happening to Marjorie Greene.)
Agnieszka Holland and Olga Tokarczuk in the Guardian – “Poland’s LGBTQ protests are glimmers of hope in an illiberal dystopia”:
Here’s a link to the July 1 Guardian coronavirus world liveblog.
From there:
Guardian – “China’s Communist party has rewritten its own past – but the truth will surface.”
Some of the most interesting parts:
Guardian world liveblog:
Sad and pathetic:
CNN: “[Sen. Tom] Cotton and longtime Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley went through Grassley’s workout routine onstage, doing 22 push-ups face-to-face while the state’s other Republican senator, Joni Ernst, counted them off.”
Josh Marshall: “Hannity marvels over Trump cognitive test score in live interview: ‘He didn’t get one question wrong, 30 out of 30, wow!'” (Video at the link.)
ABC – “Pelosi taps GOP Rep. Liz Cheney for House select committee to investigate Jan. 6”:
Chris Hayes: “An abiding principle that unites the entire GOP from McConnell to Trump to Roberts: making things harder for voters and easier for donors.”
The editorial board of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is totally fed up with Sen. Ron Johnson’s anti-science approach to the pandemic. They described Ron Johnson as “the most irresponsible representative of Wisconsin citizens since the infamous Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy in the 1950s,” adding that Johnson “is not fit to be your senator.”
Ron Johnson has a long history of making misleading claims, including this one:
More at the link. Senator Ron Johnson is responsible for spewing misinformation that harms his constituents.
Supreme Court conservatives side with GOP on voting restrictions
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority had already weakened the Voting Rights Act. Today, those justices made matters much worse.
From today’s DN! headlines:
Republicans settle on a new political foil: the NSA
Tucker Carlson is pushing a conspiracy theory about the NSA. Congressional Republicans are taking it seriously, which is probably unwise.
Channel 4 – “Revealed: ExxonMobil’s lobbying war on climate change legislation”: “A senior ExxonMobil lobbyist has been captured on camera revealing how the oil giant is using its power and influence to water down US climate legislation.”
Report and video atl.
Cybersecurity news:
Link
President Biden:
Guardian world liveblog:
Wonkette: “More Capitol Rioters Arrested: Oath Keepers, Boogaloo And Proud Boys, Oh My!”
Link
Videos and still photos are available at the link.
Here’s a link to TPM’s liveblog of the Trump Org/Weisselberg indictments. The arraignment is scheduled for 2:15 PM ET.
Link
Wow.
“Thursday just in: +1.63M doses reported administered over yesterday’s total, including 665K newly vaccinated. Two-thirds of adults with at least one dose! Congrats to Delaware, Minnesota and Puerto Rico for reaching the 70% of adults with at least one dose milestone! #WeCanDoThis”
Guardian world liveblog:
Guardian – “Covid ‘perfect storm’ as more patients hit by fungal infections”:
Prosecutors in NY finally reveal criminal charges against Trump Org
Trump Organization lawyers spent days suggesting the criminal charges would be trivial and underwhelming. The truth is far more damaging.
“the subtext of this Ashli Babbitt conspiracy theory is that the officer was somehow in the wrong for shooting someone who was trying to break through the last barricade preventing the Trump mob of which she was a part from attacking members of Congress”
The Trump gang are now trying to get the guy who shot Babbitt identified and endangered. I’ve always thought Trump’s (and Rand Paul’s and others’) efforts to out the whistleblower and Trump’s threats to his life were among the worst things they did, and they were never held accountable for it. Indeed, Republicans ignored, excused, or joined in with it. I’m not at all surprised they’re now menacing this man who was protecting Congresspeople.
Wonkette: “ExxonMobil Lobbyist Pretty Proud Of How Much He Messed Up Biden’s Climate Legislation”
Link
Full indictment at this link. Looks strong to me, especially since they maintained a set of books spelling out that the money was compensation and also removed Weisselberg’s name from and destroyed inculpatory business records.
Ryan Goodman:
More atl.
Guardian world liveblog:
Good news – BBC – “Golden Dawn fugitive Christos Pappas arrested in Greece – reports”:
Rachel Maddow was speculating on an unnamed executive who received suspicious compensation as a consultant to avoid taxes: Ivanka, Video if I can find it.
The Ivanka claims are supported by a previous NYT article, so it’s old news.
Link to old article reporting the Ivanka accusation.
Link to Rachel that includes the Ivanka claims.
Guardian – “Labour’s Kim Leadbeater wins narrow victory in Batley and Spen byelection”:
Guardian – “Britain found to have funded ‘conversion therapy’ clinics in Africa”:
More atl.
Here’s a link to the July 2 Guardian coronavirus world liveblog.
From there:
LOL. LOL.
DoJ: “Attorney General Merrick B. Garland Imposes a Moratorium on Federal Executions; Orders Review of Policies and Procedures”
Link to statement atl.
El País – “Why protesters in Colombia are targeting monuments of Spanish conquistadors”:
More atl.
Guardian world liveblog:
Trump can’t shake his obsession with the ‘reinstatement’ fantasy
New reporting says Trump is still “obsessed” with the idea that he can be “reinstated” to the presidency. That’s bonkers, but it’s not irrelevant.
Justice Dept presses Congress to pass new voting rights laws
The Justice Department has joined progressive activists, state legislators, and three Supreme Court justices in pushing Congress to protect voting rights.
Fifty Senate Democrats.
Julia Davis:
Follow-up to raven’s comment 249.
Plan for privately financed Guard deployment faces new pushback
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) is using private money to deploy the National Guard to the border. The pushback is intensifying.
Yesterday’s tweet o’ the day.
US job growth soared in June, exceeding expectations
Last month, Kevin McCarthy looked at the job numbers and said President Biden’s economic policies “have stalled our recovery.” Yeah, about that…
GOP disarray: Liz Cheney faces new threats from Kevin McCarthy
Liz Cheney ignored GOP threats about participating in a Jan. 6 investigation. Kevin McCarthy is eyeing “payback.”
Dominion Hits Rudy On All Sides
Let The Sh*tshow Commence: Gov. LePage Reemerges With Bid To Take Back Old Job
Lynna, OM @ 232
More like 48 Senate Democrats and two bribed, self-aggrandizing schmucks.
Follow-up to comment 330.
Posted by readers of the article:
“As agriculture, forestry and other land use currently account for about 25% of global emissions, the IPCC draft reports that a global shift to more #plantbased diets could reduce emissions from the food sector by as much as 70% by 2050.”
Things are going great:
Markos Moulitsas at Daily Kos – “Robert F. Kennedy Jr. attacks me and Daily Kos. This is my (way too much fun) response.”
Akira @331, yes. Thanks for that correction. :-)
In other news:
Drought and extreme heat have turned whole regions into tinderboxes.
Alabama police: Nearly two dozen shots fired into Democratic state senator’s home
Wonkette: “Trump Lackey Makes Social Media … Thing … For Oppressed White People To Say The N-Word!”
Link
Here’s the YouTube link for the 40-minute NYT video report on the January 6th attack.
@ 336
And throughout the American West, a hue and cry could be heard everywhere: “FIRST THEY MAKE US WEAR MASKS, THEN THEY FOIST THAR FAUCI-GATES-SATAN JUICE ON US, NOW THEY IS TAKEN AWAY OUR FOURTH OF JU-LY!?!?!? THIS IS ALL JUS’ FAKE NEWS LIKE COVID AND JAN-YOU-AARY SIXTH! THAR TAINT NO ‘WILDFIRES!!!!'”
Extreme heat is killing people in Arizona’s mobile homes.
Washington Post link
Residents of older, substandard mobile homes [sometimes called “manufactured homes”] are at higher risk of death in summer’s blazing temperatures.
Firefighters are tackling three major wildfires in California.
Washington Post link
U.S. Leaves Its Last Afghan Base, Effectively Ending Operations.
NY Times link
With little fanfare, Bagram Air Base — once the military’s nerve center — was handed over to the Afghans, after nearly 20 years of waging war from the hub.
As Afghan Forces Crumble, an Air of Unreality Grips the Capital.
NY Times link
With the Taliban advancing and U.S. troops leaving, President Ashraf Ghani and his aides have become increasingly insular, and Kabul is slipping into shock.
Historians’ rankings offer good news for Obama, bad news for Trump
The good news for Trump in the new C-SPAN historians’ survey is that he didn’t rank at the very bottom. The bad news is, he was close to the very bottom.
Strong economic news pushes GOP to use odd new talking points
The Republican line, last month: The economy’s bad, blame Biden. The Republican line, this month: The economy’s good, credit Trump.
Good news: The New Hampshire Supreme Court this morning struck down new voter-registration restrictions imposed by Republican policymakers in the state. As a WMUR report explained, the state’s highest court concluded that the measures could deter people from registering and voting and “imposes unreasonable burdens on the right to vote.”
Sigh. Will it never end?
NBC News: “Arizona Senate Republicans’ extraordinarily partisan and controversial ballot review again extended their lease this week, adding at least two more weeks to the already delayed operation.”
GOPers Pal Around With Capitol Insurrectionist At The Border
David Frum: Trump’s whiny rants about his legal troubles ‘will not do him much good in court’
Pelosi and Schumer, cancel recess. Save democracy
Just Security – “Allen Weisselberg’s Post-Indictment Strategic Considerations.”
Greg Sargent:
Per #228, Pelosi is selecting these remaining members, “in consultation with” McCarthy. AFAIK he can’t make selections himself. He also can’t unilaterally remove House members from their committees.
Tweet o’ the day.
“#Lukashenko has just announced that #Belarus completely closes the border with Ukraine. He went on to say that ‘a huge amount of weapons comes from Ukraine to Belarus’. It might be an act of revenge on Ukraine. It is now even more crucial that Ukraine joins EU sanctions”
OK, you horror show of a week, you’ve made your point.
What #353 is alluding to: “ALERT: New Hampshire Supreme Court STRIKES DOWN restrictive voter residency law that targeted young, low-income and minority voters. The court ruled that the law violates the state constitution by imposing ‘unreasonable burdens on the right to vote’.”
LOL: “#France’s @MoetHennessy reportedly suspended exports of its champagnes to #Russia following approval of a new Russian law which defines that #champagne designation is only applicable to sparkling wines made in Russia.
#Kafka”
re Lynna @347: How is it that official election officials can count millions of ballots in a couple of days at most, and these idiot have had a couple of months and STILL haven’t been able to count the ballots from ONE CITY? Incompetence personified!
Sorry, Lynna – missed your #346!
Follow-up to SC@357, Amusingly, the only thing I’ve been able to find, to-date, is from the BBC’s Russian-language service, Moet Hennessy приостановил поставки шампанского в Россию из-за нового закона (Moët Hennessy has suspended the supply of champagne to Russia due to the new law), translated by Generalissimo Google (I manually corrected Moet to Moët in the translation):
I assume the “Russian champange” is Sovetskoye Shampanskoye (Сове́тское шампа́нское, “Soviet Champagne”), which is also made in several other countries, including Ukraine and Belarus.
Twenty people are now confirmed to have died in the collapse of Champlain Towers in Surfside, Florida.
President Biden visited the scene of the disaster. From the Washington Post:
Meanwhile, the first hurricane of the 2021 Atlantic season, Elsa, is bearing down on Florida. There’s really no way to secure the damaged building before the storm hits, so rescue teams will probably have to stop their activities on the pile of debris at some point.
More of Trump’s mess has been brought to light:
New York Times link
Follow-up to SC @355.
Solar panels and windmills did not set the Gulf of Mexico on fire this week. Fossil fuels did
Paul Gosar has already proven that he is a terrible person, but for unknown reasons he continues to pile on evidence that he is even worse than we thought:
Link
Oh, good … good Ambassadors.
Link
Dozens of Capitol riot defendants accused of trying to delete photos, texts
Wonkette:
Link
Washington Post:
Washington Post: “Plans to demolish unstable remains of condo tower accelerate ahead of potential tropical storm.”
The portion of Champlain Towers South left standing could be knocked down as early as Sunday. The death toll has risen to 24, with 124 still missing.
From The New Yorker: Britney Spears’s Conservatorship Nightmare
How the pop star’s father and a team of lawyers seized control of her life—and have held on to it for thirteen years.
More at the link
Doofuses in law enforcement … especially in Idaho:
Thank goodness! That was a close call. Too close.
Link
It’s an appealing ideology for rural populations and insular people who have come to believe that nothing and no one outside their community matters (especially those who don’t look and think like they do) and virulently resent “outsiders” telling them how to behave.
Teh le penazis are furious at their führer, France’s far-right Marine Le Pen under fire for going mainstream (video):
That’s hilarious! Teh le penazis are an authoritrain family cult. It’s always been about teh Le Pen family and their chosen few. So what is Lerogmoron whingeing about? Their doing exactly what they always have done.
Even more hilarity! First off, France itself has the centralised top-down disease in spades clubs and entire board games. So much so that the “regions” — what the recent elections were for — seem pointless to a lot of people. Second, teh le penazi’s are, again, an authoritarian family cult. Why would they bother to pay attention to Moissac’s mayor or voters, or consider them anything other than tithe-paying
simpletonschildren? Nothing to say, move along, bow down low and get out of the way, here comes your führer’s pet moolsin-eating lion.Lauren Witzke Says the Equality Act Will (RWW edits in {curly braces}):
Vice President Harris has her own gulags?
Link
More at the link
‘Loser-Palooza’ indeed: Trump makes himself center attention despite catastrophe in Surfside
The reference is to Trump’s rally in Florida last night.
In addition to the LoserPalooza characterization of the rally, a lot of reporters noted that both Trump Senior and Trump Junior admitted to crimes:
Follow-up to comment 376:
Commentary:
Link
Washington Post:
Bradley P. Moss:
Chris Hayes:
“All members are in the tunnels under capital seal them in. Turn on gas”
Where COVID cases are rising:
Link
Link
Frederick Douglass, September 1848 … more of a real independence day:
From David Fahrenthold and others, writing for The Washington Post:
Washington Post link
Wonkette:
Link
Here’s a link to the July 5 Guardian coronavirus world liveblog.
From there:
Also in the Guardian – “PM to confirm 19 July end to Covid rules despite scientists’ warnings”:
This piece in FP goes some way to answering my question @ #7 (nothing about Peskov’s “revaccination” remarks specifically, though): “The Shocking Enormity of Russia’s Botched Pandemic Response.”
Ohio Enacts Conscience Protections For Medical Personnel and Institutions
By John Riley on July 2, 2021
“NEWS: The Grand Bazaar of Tehran has shut down due to fifth coronavirus wave from the emergence of the Delta variant in the country.”
Pew’s postelection poll of validated voters paints fuller picture of Biden’s 2020 win
“Lafayette Park is open again, the outer barriers to the White House are gone and all that remains is the main fence. Tourists are leaning up to it, taking photos. Anti-war and pro-weed protesters are around here doing their thing. Feels like the before time.”
Photos atl.
Segregation in the USA:
Link
Cartoon: Maga goggles!
Follow-up to comment 376.
Trump in 2016: ‘I know more about taxes than any human’; Trump today: ‘Do you have to’ pay taxes?
“Florida is averaging 2,241 cases/day, a 55% increase over the last 14 days. That’s 17% of all cases in the US. Florida needs to surge its vaccine effort.”
I live in a state where more than half the population seems determined to give variants a chance.
Death toll rises to 27 in Florida condo collapse
Search and rescue efforts have now resumed.
Wonkette:
Just Security:
Trump Irked Over Giuliani Requesting Pay For Efforts To Overturn Election Results
LOL. Pathetic
Follow-up to comment 397.
Posted by readers of the article:
Former Fox Exec Calls Out Rupert Murdoch And Fox News For Feeding Viewers ‘Falsehoods’
Social Media App Launched By Trump Adviser Was Hacked On Its Launch Day
Fascists March In, Get Chased Out Of Philadelphia
Video is available at the link.
Link
Wonkette:
Link
Wonkette:
Link
3 more bodies found amid condo rubble after collapse and demolition; search for survivors continues.
Washington Post link
‘Drought’ doesn’t cover it anymore for the West. This is aridification and it’s not going away
Maps are available at the link. The comparison between June 2018 and June 2021 is shocking.
CNN – “Rates of new Covid-19 cases are almost 3 times higher in states with low vaccination rates, new data shows”:
(The CNN article @ #407 has a map of vaccination progress by county, which is quite useful for understanding the distribution of vaccinations within states.)
Guardian – “Tbilisi Pride march cancelled after far-right attack on headquarters”:
SC @408, that map was useful. Thanks.
I see that the county in which I live has gone from 29% vaccinated (where it seemed to be stuck for months) to 32% vaccinated. That’s still awfully low.
Mass delusion:
Link
99.2 percent. Not vaccinated.
More than 1,000 Afghan soldiers flee into Tajikistan as Taliban extends control, Tajik officials say.
Washington Post link
Miracle Cures and Magnetic People. Brazil’s Fake News Is Utterly Bizarre.
NY Times link
Josh Marshall:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/he-speaks-2
OMFG
Thousands in India given fake coronavirus vaccines at scam drives, officials say
Brazil’s Bolsonaro borrows a page from the Republican playbook
New records show Team Trump pressing Arizona not to certify results
It’s not just Georgia: Team Trump improperly pressured officials in Arizona about election certification, too.
Biden admin formally announces plan to return deported U.S. military veterans and family members
Wonkette: “Pistol-Packing Loon Lauren Boebert Kicks Off Independence Day Holy War”
Link
No wonder Trump is giving speeches in which he sees himself in messianic terms. His cult followers, including Lauren Boebert, view him that way.
Wonkette: “GOP Just Can’t Decide How Much Democracy To Steal When It Redraws Congressional Districts”
Link
Wonkette:
Link
Wonkette: “Donny Deutsch, Rich Asshole, Wants Shiftless Workers Back On The Plantation NOW”
Link
New York Times:
New York Times: “How G.O.P. Laws in Montana Could Complicate Voting for Native American”
Restrictions passed by the Republican-led Montana Legislature could have stark effects on Native American reservations, where voting in person can mean a two-hour drive.
Link
Top Montana Election Official Denies Trump’s Claim
A Washington Post report noted over the holiday weekend, “Across the country, as campaigns gear up for a handful of key races this year and the pivotal 2022 midterms, Republican candidates for state and federal offices are increasingly focused on the last election — running on the falsehood spread by Trump and his allies that the 2020 race was stolen from him.”
Josh Marshall:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/important-info
Right-wing outlets did what right-wing outlets do: Lie, this time on U.S. Women’s Soccer
Photos and video are available at the link.
Over the Fourth of July weekend, 51 people were shot in the state of New York.
Cuomo declares ‘state emergency’ on gun violence in New York
Link
For some time now, the French track-and-trace app has been claiming that in my area of France, the Delta variant was essentially non-existent (even reporting 0 new cases at least once), whilst for France as-a-whole, it’s been growing rapidly (currently c.42%). That seemed increasingly weird. The historical trends data was also very weird: France as a whole had a rapidly increasing percentage of cases being Delta, whilst this area continued to be be less than 1%. This weirdness now appears to have been a bug in the app, server, or data: It now shows Delta is c.48% of cases in this area, and the historical data / trend is now more-or-less tracking the national data.
This morning was the weekly village outdoors market, and not only was almost everyone masked, almost all of the mask-wearers were actually wearing them properly! Very poor (mostly non-existent) social distancing however. Unfortunately, the app only gives percentage vaccinated for all of France (c.37%), so I can only guess at the local vaccination rate.
My second jab is tomorrow. No flying saucers have crashed on my magnetised arm yet, albeit the microchips are busily chirping away, trying to luring them within range. I did, however, have a pigeon collide with my head the other day… I’m Ok, unfortunately, so is the flying rat. (I can now add erratically piloted pigeons to the list of things my hat provides protection against, such as sun, rain, small asteroids, and most peas.)
Ingenuity has now successfully flown nine times on Mars. Parts of the ninth flight were done at speed (5 metres per second), and it surveyed a sandy area impassible to the rover. The data is still being downloaded, but it used its colour camera for the survey, which is significant — it means software with a fix for the bug which caused the gyrating on the sixth flight was uploaded (the hypothesis was the very-CPU-intensive processing of the colour images is what caused a navigation image during the sixth flight to be dropped, so during the seventh and eight flights, there was no colour imagery). The sandy area it overflew, called Séítah, was not flat, which was an additional challenge for the navigation system, which is mainly designed for flat(er?) terrain.
A snippet from The Onion, Congressional Democrats Put On Elaborate 4th Of July Pageant To Teach Republicans Importance Of Democracy:
And, Congress Takes Field Trip To Goldman Sachs To Learn How Laws Get Made:
The US smoked Mexico, but everyone’s headed to the Olympics so it’s all good.
I have recommendations:
Outstanding interview at MIA – “The Politics of Distress: A Discussion With Dr. James Davies on His New Book, ‘Sedated'”:
I’d written a review of Davies’ previous book a while back. This one sounds even better.
Citations Needed – “Episode 139 – Of Meat and Men: How Beef Became Synonymous with Settler-Colonial Domination.”
There are a few stupid remarks by a host about meat-eating which are best ignored. Several other recent episodes are worthwhile, including “News Brief: The Casual Soft Eugenics of Self-Help ‘Friendscaping’ Content” and the ones about enemy epithets.
Maintenance Phase episode “The Keto Diet.”
More recommendations:
New Books Network – Out of Time: The Queer Politics of Postcoloniality:
DN! – “Glimmer of Hope in Honduras: Ex-Dam CEO & West Point Grad Convicted in Murder of Berta Cáceres”:
From today’s DN! headlines:
France 24 – “Haitian President Jovenel [Moïse] assassinated overnight in private residence (interim PM’s office)”:
Follow-up to @432, Some snippets from Paris passes alert level as Covid cases rise (possibly paywalled):
Whilst the article doesn’t specifically say so, I presume the rise in cases in Paris is mostly due to the Delta variant. The incidence map indicates that, currently, only Paris in mainland France has more than 50 cases per 100,000 people.
The track-and-trace app says about 42% and 48% respectively, albeit the data is four-ish days old. A rise from 48% to 60% seems plausible, but I wonder about the (implied) drop from 42% to 30% — something seems rather “off” there… maybe They™ were also attacked by magnetically-attracted pigeons?
Follow-up to @432, Some snippets from Paris passes alert level as Covid cases rise (possibly paywalled):
Whilst the article doesn’t specifically say so, I presume the rise in cases in Paris is mostly due to the Delta variant. The incidence map indicates that, currently, only Paris in mainland France has more than 50 cases per 100,000 people.
The track-and-trace app says about 42% and 48% respectively, albeit the data is four-ish days old. A rise from 48% to 60% seems plausible, but I wonder about the (implied) drop from 42% to 30% — something seems rather “off” there… maybe They™ were also attacked by magnetically-attracted pigeons?
Follow-up to @432, Some snippets from Paris passes alert level as Covid cases rise (possibly paywalled):
Whilst the article doesn’t specifically say so, I presume the rise in cases in Paris is mostly due to the Delta variant. The incidence map(link redacted since I think it’s triggering poopyhead’s filter?) indicates that, currently, only Paris in mainland France has more than 50 cases per 100,000 people.
The track-and-trace app says about 42% and 48% respectively, albeit the data is four-ish days old. A rise from 48% to 60% seems plausible, but I wonder about the (implied) drop from 42% to 30% — something seems rather “off” there… maybe They™ were also attacked by magnetically-attracted pigeons?
French court orders Twitter to reveal anti-hate speech efforts (possibly paywalled):
French prosecutors probe modern-day slavery claims against Saudi prince:
First Dog on the Moon in the Gruaniad, The ocean is on fire — humans have finally done it (cartoon), “Someone might lose their job — there might be a fine — there might not — nothing changes”.
Here’s a link to the July 7 Guardian coronavirus world liveblog.
From there:
Guardian world liveblog:
I just got back from having my second jab and today’s first beer. Sadly, nothing unusual happened — I didn’t stick to the side of the bus, which wasn’t attacked by kamikaze pigeons, and one eejit mouth-breathing passenger was using their mask as a chin strap to keep their mouth shut, making me wonder how they actually breathed during the (fortunately short) ride.
About the New York City mayoral election:
New York Times link
Bits and pieces of news:
Link
It’s not just COVID: Ron Johnson flunks climate science, too
Ron Johnson’s nonsense about COVID is dangerous, but it appears his hostility toward climate science is just as jarring.
Yes, the Republican plan is out in the open.
Rep on bipartisanship: Republicans want ’18 more months of chaos’
Chip Roy says he wants to curtail governing for a year and a half, create “chaos,” and make sure Congress can’t “get stuff done.” Dems should believe him.
Mitch McConnell:
Commentary:
Link
Josh Marshall:
Link
Republican governor signs state budget with sneaky last-minute anti-LGBTQ provision
John Kelly reportedly ‘shocked’ after Trump refused to stop praising Nazi leader Adolf Hitler
Link
“A federal judge has ruled that the U.S. Air Force is mostly responsible for a former serviceman killing more than two dozen people at a Texas church in 2017 …” Well, that’s a strange way to put it. Odd emphasis on blaming someone else for what Devin Kelley did, but I do see where they are going with this. The armed forces should submit criminal histories to a database so as to limit the accessibility of firearms to people convicted of domestic violence.
Link
President Joe Biden:
Link
FBI seized ‘fully constructed’ US Capitol Lego set from home of alleged rioter
Link
Wonkette:
Link
Wonkette: “Kevin McCarthy Contemplates Best Way To Ratf*ck January 6 Commission”
Link
Garcia and Wiley Concede in N.Y.C. Mayor’s Race.
NY Times link
Kathryn Garcia and Maya Wiley both sought to become the first woman elected mayor of New York City. They finished behind Eric Adams in the Democratic primary.
Why Trump’s ‘class-action lawsuit’ is so hard to take seriously
Trump claims to have filed a “class-action lawsuit” against Twitter and Facebook, but it looks an awful lot like a fundraising gimmick.
Texas Lawmakers Return For A Second Shot At Tighter Voting Laws
July 7, 2021 ASHLEY LOPEZ
NPR
Marjorie Taylor Greene Reports Sightings of Jewish Space Lasers Across U.S
That’s a New Yorker link above.
The text is illustrated with a photo of Fourth of July fireworks. :-)
Surfside update from NBC News:
Well that figures: “Virginia ‘Bible study’ group was cover for violent militia plans, prosecutors say.”
Washington Post link
Quoted in Lynna’s #459:
My belief was that Pelosi appoints the members, this group “in consultation with” McCarthy. I didn’t think he could appoint members without her agreement. Am I wrong about this?
From today’s DN! headlines:
From the Guardian:
“Spain’s far-right Vox party under fire for veiled Twitter threat against editor”:
“Armed Afghan women take to streets in show of defiance against Taliban”:
SC @466:
Yeah, I think you are right. McCarthy can try to appoint the “ratfuckers” but Pelosi has final approval. However, I think Pelosi could have a political problem on her hands if she refuses all of McCarthy’s suggestions. I’m in wait-and-see mode on this.
Arizona Sec of State seeks probe into Trump’s election interference
Were Team Trump’s election interference efforts in Arizona legal? Arizona’s secretary of state believes the answer is no.
Link
Good News:
Link
The South Carolina Attorney General Strategized With Big-Wig Conservative Lawyers On Suit To Overturn Election, Records Show
Link
Follow-up to comment 473.
Posted by readers of the article:
Here’s a link to the July 8 Guardian coronavirus world liveblog.
From there:
Guardian – “Hungary fines bookshop chain over picture book depicting LGBT families”:
From today’s DN! headlines:
Ben Collins at NBC – “QAnon’s new ‘plan’? Run for school board”:
More atl.
“One thing that is extraordinary to me is how Fox News goes from one allegedly civilization ending threat to the next, as if the last one just disappeared. It’s immigration and caravans, then it’s critical race theory. Each the gravest threat imaginable, until it gets replaced.”
LOL.
Tweet o’ the day.
Some snippets from Trump’s Fantasy Legal World, which is mostly about hair furor’s alleged lawsuit against factsborked, twittering, and others:
Follow-up to comment 465.
Virginia ‘Bible study’ group planned to test homemade bombs, FBI says
WTF?
Contractor running camp for migrant kids is fire and water damage repair company, report reveals
Delta variant said to be far more widespread than federal estimates
The reality on the ground is likely much higher because states and private labs are taking weeks to report testing results to the CDC.
Andy Slavitt:
Link atl.
Tucker Carlson:
Commentary:
Wonkette link
Trump continues to rake in cash from the Secret Service.
“Trump charged Secret Service nearly $10,200 in May for agents’ rooms.”
Washington Post link
The right’s NSA conspiracy theory comes into sharper focus
New reporting on the NSA, Russia, and Tucker Carlson
Link
Link
Wonkette: Tennessee Moms Have Found The Critical Race Theory, And It Is Ruby Bridges’ Children’s Book!
https://www.wonkette.com/tn-moms-ruby-bridges
Quoted in Lynna’s #491:
Among other coercive interference with those who want to “make their own decisions” about their bodies. People who want to have gay sex. Women and girls who want to use contraception. People who want to use puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and surgery to live their identity, to choose their own name and bathroom. People working in meatpacking plants who want to avoid exposure to a deadly virus. Immigrants whose periods they monitored. Poor people who don’t want lead in their paint or their pipes. People who don’t want their doctors working in league with businesses to intentionally addict them to opioids. Black women who want to survive pregnancy. Athletes who want to protest with their bodies during the national anthem. People in the countries the US has invaded or where it backs oligarchic rule. People working in sweatshops. People who don’t want their water, air, and soil poisoned or dangerous heat, extreme storms, or drought. People who want food options not determined by government-backed corporations and racism. Retail workers, healthcare workers, flight attendants, public health and election officials, and others who don’t want their lives or those of their families threatened. People who want parental leave to care for their children. People who want access to medical care without risking bankruptcy. Kids who want science-based sex education. People who want to use drugs. People who want assisted death. Kids who don’t want to be physically abused by their school. Black people who want to live their lives without police harassment and terror. People who refuse psychiatric labels and drugs. Asylum seekers. Sex workers. Billions of nonhuman animals….
Hell, the leader of their party is a rapist who defends other rapists and sex traffickers as well as war criminals. They fucking love coercion. Their entire existence and ideology are based on it.
First Dog On the Moon in the Grauniad, I hate to say it but it looks like the age of fossil fuels will end in the next few years (cartoon), “It is the monthly board meeting of the Coalbastards Corporation”.
Guardian – “Haiti police say 26 Colombians, two US-Haitians took part in Jovenel Moïse assassination”: