I'm not comfortable calling Lin Wood an asshole

Although I think he is, I think he's actually got serious mental issues that could be mitigating.

Lin Wood, the defamation and personal injury lawyer who took up former President Trump’s baseless accusations of election fraud, will run to lead the South Carolina Republican Party less than a month after moving to the Palmetto State from his home base in Georgia.

In an email late Sunday, Wood confirmed that he would seek to oust Chairman Drew McKissick, who has run the South Carolina Republican Party since 2017.

[...]

Wood, 68, became a key member of Trump’s legal team in the weeks and months after Trump lost to President Biden. Wood repeatedly signed on to litigation that was summarily dismissed in court after court for lacking any credible evidence.

  The Hill

Something tells me that won't bother the good people of South Carolina, home of Lindsey Graham.

He also became a spreader of the baseless QAnon conspiracy theory while at the same time encouraging Republicans to sit out a runoff election in Georgia in which both incumbent Republican senators lost their seats to Democrats.

That either.

Though he grew up in Georgia, he is under investigation for voter fraud in the Peach State after he told a reporter he had moved to South Carolina before November’s election.

Yeah, that either.

To get a better understanding of Lin Wood, check out this podcast :

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Trump's new website

Two things I wonder:

1) Why his presidential seal logo doesn't say, 45th President of the United States like all his "statements" do; and 

2) How will he make money from this?

And one thing I can almost guarantee you: "Request a Greeting" will catch him up in some laughable and embarrassing situations.

Terms of use:

But, but, what about freeeeeeeeeeeeee speeeeeeeeeeeech?!

What actual "America first" looks like

WaPo article

No doubt she's right.  

Cleaning up Trump's mess

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan will purge more than 40 outside experts appointed by President Donald Trump from two key advisory panels, a move he says will help restore the role of science at the agency and reduce the heavy influence of industry over environmental regulations.

The unusual decision, announced Wednesday, will sweep away outside researchers picked under the previous administration whose expert advice helped the agency craft regulations related to air pollution, fracking and other issues.

  WaPo

Trump should have been impeached

The Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis asked HHS, the Department of Homeland Security and the National Archives to turn over more records on the prior administration’s procurement of protective gear as part of an ongoing investigation.

“We are concerned that the previous administration may not have conducted sufficient diligence prior to awarding multi-million-dollar contracts, and that White House officials may have placed inappropriate pressure on federal agencies to award contracts to particular companies,” Subcommittee chair Jim Clyburn and other panel Democrats wrote in letters obtained by POLITICO.

What the documents say: A memo the committee obtained that was sent by White House trade adviser Peter Navarro in March 2020 warned that the then-isolated cases of Covid-19 would balloon into “a very serious public health emergency” and lamented that “movement has been slow” to prepare. The memo advised the president to shore up domestic supply chains for PPE and accelerate development of diagnostics and therapeutics.

  Politico

But his approach was to try and imprison infected and non-infected tourists alike on a cruise ship that came into port so they wouldn't come into the country and increase "the numbers".

In the months that followed, according to other documents the committee released Wednesday, Navarro and other senior officials and outside advisers pushed federal agencies to give no-bid contracts for pharmaceutical ingredients and other supplies to companies that were recently formed and had political ties with the Trump administration.

The Trump years were one big grift.  We're going to find out ever more evidence in the months and years ahead.

One deal under investigation is a $354 million contract awarded to the Phlow Corporation — a first-time government contractor that had incorporated just a few months before receiving the funds. It was the largest contract ever awarded by BARDA, and it followed a series of emails from Navarro to agency leaders in March of 2020.

[...]

The panel is also investigating a $3 million federal contract given to a company formed by former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Zachary Fuentes to provide respirator masks to the Navajo Nation through the Indian Health Services. Fuentes’ company received the contract just 11 days after its creation.

“When the respirator masks were delivered, IHS determined that they were unsuitable for use in a medical or surgical environment,” the committee wrote, asking for further records detailing how the contract was negotiated.

[...]

A plan to loan Eastman Kodak $765 million to shift to producing drug ingredients was scuttled after suspicious stock trades on the eve of the loan’s announcement prompted the U.S. International Development Finance Corp to cite "recent allegations of wrongdoing."

[...]

Democrats in charge of oversight panels on Capitol Hill say there is still more to uncover, in part because the Trump administration did not respond to requests for documents. Republicans on the committees are complaining that the panels are focusing too much on the past and failing to hold the Biden administration accountable.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Ivanka is a front

As Ivanka Trump traveled the world talking up the Women’s Global Development and Prosperity Initiative, a whole-of-government women’s empowerment initiative, deep problems were developing in the implementation of the bipartisan Women’s Entrepreneurship and Economic Empowerment Act of 2018.

Trump’s stump speech on the global conference circuit was anchored in stories about the legal and regulatory barriers many women face around the world in establishing their property rights and starting businesses, and she had a solution: W-GDP.

Supporters of W-GDP saw it as a groundbreaking whole-of-government approach to female empowerment, while critics of the new law derided it as too limited to make a real difference.

The plan was to mandate and codify gender analysis and deliver targeted finance across the women’s programs of 10 U.S. Government agencies.

[...]

One of the 10 agencies involved was the U.S. Agency for International Development, which is mandated by the WEEE Act to allocate $265 million a year for support to micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises. Half of the money is required to go to women, half to the very poor (some overlap between the two groups is expected).

[...]

While USAID launched at least 19 new women’s empowerment programs in 2019 alone, there were extensive failures in both the targeting of the money, and the measurement of its impact.

USAID was unable to say what proportion of funds went to the very poor and women-owned and managed businesses. Shockingly, the agency couldn’t even define what actually constitutes a business owned and run by women, the GAO concluded.

[...]

One of Ivanka Trump’s favorite anecdotes about women’s empowerment on global conference stages from New York to Doha focused on her efforts to empower Colombian women, whom she visited in September 2019 with USAID administrator Mark Green. The American and Colombian governments went as far as to issue a joint communique on their shared vision.

[...]

“USAID has not defined and does not collect information necessary to meet its statutory targeting requirements” the report noted, including by failing to obtain survey responses from 26 of its 47 bureaus around the world on how they distributed funding.

The GAO’s six recommendations for USAID focus on establishing new internal processes that can provide “reasonable assurance” that the money allocated by Congress gets to its intended recipients.

  Politico

Oh, it DOES. Do you never wonder why other countries claim US AID is an infiltration device cloaked as an aid agency?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Matt Gaetz seems to have hit a snag

And it couldn't happen to a more deserving asshat. This dropped a couple days ago...

U.S. Congressman Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., has spent so much time making cable TV appearances that he had a TV studio installed at his father’s house in the Florida Panhandle.

TV appearances are so appealing to Gaetz that he’s reportedly considering quitting Congress for a gig with Newsmax, the Boca Raton-based media outlet that’s trying to build viewership among former President Donald Trump’s fan base.

  South Florida Sun-Sentinel

So many Trumpist congress critters are nothing more than blowhards doing nothing more than blowing hard. They all need to quit congress and stick to Trumpy TV. But I'm wondering, could this news that dropped yesterday have anything to do with Matt's decision making...

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) defended himself after news broke on Tuesday of a Department of Justice (DOJ) probe reportedly investigating whether the lawmaker had sexual relations with a teenager, claiming he was the victim of “an organized criminal extortion” involving a former DOJ official.

“Over the past several weeks my family and I have been victims of an organized criminal extortion involving a former DOJ official seeking $25 million while threatening to smear my name,” Gaetz said in a series of tweets on Tuesday.

“We have been cooperating with federal authorities in this matter and my father has even been wearing a wire at the FBI’s direction to catch these criminals. The planted leak to the FBI tonight was intended to thwart that investigation,” he wrote.

  The Hill

Oh, way to get your father killed! (If there really is an organized criminal element involved.)

The Florida congressman also called on the DOJ to “immediately release the tapes, made at their direction, which implicate their former colleague in crimes against me based on false allegations.”

Whatever, Matt.

According to The New York Times, the DOJ probe is investigating whether the Florida lawmaker had sexual relations with a teenager. The probe, which reportedly launched during the last months of the Trump administration, is also looking at whether the congressman violated federal sex trafficking laws by allegedly paying for the girl to travel with him.

The girl is reportedly 17 years old.

[...]

The probe is reportedly part of a larger investigation into Joel Greenberg, a former local Florida tax collector and an ally of Gaetz who is facing charges of sex trafficking a child and payment to at least one female minor for sex. Greenberg has reportedly pleaded not guilty to the charges.

[...]

Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) has called for Gaetz to be suspended from the House Judiciary Committee, on which they both serve, pending the outcome of the probe.

“He should not be sitting on a Congressional Committee with oversight over the DOJ while the Department is investigating him,” Lieu tweeted on Tuesday shortly after the Times published its report.

Indeed he should not. And, by the way, 17 is about the proper stage of maturity for Matt Gaetz. Although 13 would be closer.Even Tucker Carlson is backing away from Gaetz. (Which makes me wonder, not for the first time, what sex scandal of his own Tucker Carlson is eager to keep under wraps.)

“If you just saw our Matt Gaetz interview, that was one of the weirdest interviews I have ever conducted,” Carlson said to his viewers after the segment on his Fox News show “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”

[...]

[Gaetz] denied the allegations but confirmed that he was under investigation.

Gaetz said that the accusations were part of an “extortion effort against my family for $25 million ... in exchange for making this case go away.”

[...]

“They even claimed to have specific connections inside the Biden White House,” he added. “Now, I don’t know if that’s true. They were promising that Joe Biden would pardon me. Obviously, I don’t need a pardon. I’m not seeking a pardon. I have not done anything improper or wrong.”

  

Matt Gaetz would be a defense attorney's nightmare.

And what an obvious bogus claim about the Biden White House. Pathetic.

“You would think that he would be wanting to work with the FBI and you would think he would want to keep this quiet,” Katie Benner, who covers the Justice Department for the Times, said in an appearance on “The Rachel Maddow Show.”

“So you have to put this all into context and say that in doing this and basically blowing up an FBI investigation into people trying to extort his family, you know, he has both complicated that investigation and also cast aspersions on something that was serious enough that Attorney General [William] Barr approved it," Benner added.

[...]

“But what I am troubled by is the real motivation for all of this,” Gaetz said to Carlson. “You know, just tonight, Ted Lieu, a Democrat, was calling on me to be removed from the House Judiciary Committee. I believe we are in an era of our politics now, Tucker, where people are smeared to try to take them out of the conversation.”

"Cancel culture"?

Gaetz told Carlson there have been similar attempts to use law enforcement to intimidate him, something he said the host should be aware of since it came up while Carlson and Gaetz were at dinner together once.

“I can say that actually, you and I went to dinner about two years ago, your wife was there, and I brought a friend of mine, you will remember her,” Gaetz said. “And she was actually threatened by the FBI, told that if she wouldn’t cop to the fact that somehow I was involved in some pay-for-play scheme that she could face trouble. And so I do believe that there are people at the Department of Justice who are trying to smear me.”

Carlson said he had no recollection of that event.

Which liar do you believe? It's so hard to choose.

“That story just appeared in the news a couple of hours ago, and on the certainty that there is always more than you read in the newspaper, we immediately called Matt Gaetz and asked him to come on and tell us more, which, as you saw, he did,” Carlson said about the interview. “I don’t think that clarified much, but it certainly showed this is a deeply interesting story, and we will be following it. Don’t quite understand it, but we will bring you more when we find out

Or not.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE: Further details on the interview...

In the interview, Gaetz detailed how his father was texted by someone asking for “$25 million in exchange for making horrible sex trafficking allegations against me go away” and how the FBI asked his dad to wear a wire.

Then, as Carlson looked intently into the camera, Gaetz dramatically called on the FBI to share the resulting tapes.

“Tonight, I am demanding that the Department of Justice and the FBI release the audio recordings that were made under their supervision and at their direction, which will prove my innocence,” Gaetz said.

Before Carlson could ask a follow-up question about the tapes, Gaetz said the publication of a New York Times story revealing the investigation was purposely timed to ruin an imminent sting operation and provide cover for the extortionist.

“And this former Department of Justice official tomorrow was supposed to be contacted by my father so that specific instructions could be given regarding the wiring of $4.5 million as a down payment on this bribe,” Gaetz said. “I don't think it's a coincidence that tonight, somehow The New York Times is leaking this information smearing me and ruining the investigation that would likely result in one of the former colleagues of the current DOJ being brought to justice.”

Later in the interview, Gaetz referenced a slightly different time for the supposed sting, mentioning “money that was supposed to be paid today.”

[...]

Carlson remained pokerfaced as the Florida congressman seemed to try to appeal to him by raising what Gaetz characterized as similar accusations faced by the Fox News anchor.

“I'm not the only person on screen right now who has been falsely accused of a terrible sex act,” Gaetz said. “You were accused of something that you did not do. And so you know what this feels like, you know, the pain it can bring to your family.”

Gaetz did not specify what allegations he meant. But while assuming an off-hand manner, Carlson replied that the congressman must have meant “a mentally ill viewer who accused me of a sex crime 20 years ago. And it, of course it was not true. I'd never met the person. But I do agree with you that being accused falsely is one of the worst things that can happen. And you do see it a lot.”[*]

The incident Carlson mentioned likely occurred after he joined Fox as a contributor in 2009. It was something he detailed in a 2017 episode of his Fox News show, when he discussed being falsely accused of felony rape by a certified public accountant in Indiana who he “had literally never even seen.”

  The Hill

Both Don [Matt's father] and Matt Gaetz have accused former federal prosecutor David McGee of being behind the alleged plot. McGee, who is now a lawyer at Florida-based firm Beggs & Lane, told the Daily Beast in an interview on Tuesday that the claims were “completely, totally false.”

“The FBI asked me to try and get that information for Matt and an indication we would transfer money to Mr. David McGee,” Don Gaetz told Politico. He didn't say what information he was intended to get for his son.

Don Gaetz also told Politico that he wore a wire during a meeting earlier this month with McGee, and was going to meet with Stephen Alford, who he also claimed was part of the effort.

The elder Gaetz said that he was trying to get Alford to discuss payments he was making to McGee, but the meeting fell apart when the Justice Department's investigation into Matt Gaetz was reported in the press.

  The Hill

Hey, Trumpers, I thought it was supposed to be Democrats who were child sex traffickers. WTF?

*

UPDATE:

Does he not even have an attorney?  Is it Rudy?  Or is he just ignoring a good one's advice to STFU?

UPDATE:

UPDATE:

UPDATE:  How it began...

The Justice Department is investigating allegations that Gaetz had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl and paid for her to travel across state lines, The Washington Post reported Tuesday. Gaetz confirmed the inquiry in an interview with Axios, but has said the allegations are an attempt to extort his family. The FBI is separately investigating the extortion claim, The Post reported.

[...]

[L]ast June [...] federal investigators arrested [ex-GOP official Joel Greenberg] on stalking and child sex trafficking charges, prompting his resignation.

[...]

It’s unclear exactly how Greenberg’s criminal case is connected to the Gaetz investigation; Greenberg’s lawyers did not immediately respond to messages from The Post. But it is clear that the two men, who posed for a photo together outside the White House in 2019, had ties in Florida, where they both first gained power in the GOP around 2016.

[...]

Greenberg made headlines [shortly after being elected Seminole County tax collector] as he pushed for his deputy tax collectors to be allowed to carry guns to work — a move opposed by then-attorney general Pam Bondi (R). He began wearing his tax collector badge around his neck like a police official, and in December 2017, flashed the badge to pull over a woman and accuse her of speeding, WESH reported. A month later, he used his title while trying to sway an actual police officer who stopped him for driving 39 mph in a 25 mph zone.

[...]

Greenberg also navigated a political quagmire after the Orlando Sentinel reported he had inappropriately funneled $3.5 million of taxpayer dollars to his friends, including three men who were in his wedding party.

An independent audit conducted for the county also found he had used public funds to buy body armor, weapons, ammunition and a drone. He also purchased a $90,000 server room to benefit a cryptocurrency company he created. Those servers overloaded a circuit breaker inside a county building, sparking a fire that caused $6,700 in damages that weren’t covered by insurance, the audit said.

  WaPo

You can't say the man wasn't bold.

On June 23, federal officers raided his home in Heathrow, Fla., and arrested the tax collector on charges that he had stalked a political adversary. He resigned the next day.

The federal investigators said Greenberg had posed as a “very concerned student” in anonymous letters sent to the school where the political rival worked as a teacher. The letters accused the teacher of having inappropriate sexual contact with a student. The tax collector also created impostor Facebook and Twitter accounts made to look like they belonged to the teacher and wrote posts that portrayed his adversary as a “segregationist and in favor of white supremacy,” the indictment said. (Greenberg himself had a documented history of posting anti-Muslim rhetoric, as Orlando Weekly reported in 2018.)

In August, federal investigators added charges that Greenberg had used his government position to commit identity theft and accused him of sex trafficking a child.

He was a busy man.

Greenberg was released on bond to await his trial, but was taken into custody again in early March after he violated the conditions of his pretrial release by leaving his home after curfew to search for his wife, who told police she had left to “take a break from the stressful situation with Joel.”

[...]

Until last year, Joel Greenberg was an ascendant political player in Seminole County, Fla. [...] and flaunted his connections to prominent Republicans with close ties to then-President Donald Trump, including Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Roger Stone.

And Roger Stone. That name turns up in all the depraved scandals.

UPDATE:

Taxing question

A growing number of House Democrats are threatening to withhold support from President Biden’s $3 trillion infrastructure proposal over a tax provision affecting state and local taxes.

Democrats from high-tax blue states are insisting on the repeal of a rule that limits state and local tax (SALT) deductions to $10,000, which was enacted as part of the 2017 tax law signed by President Trump to help offset the cost of some of the tax cuts in the package.

  

How about we just repeal all of Trump's tax cuts for the rich?

Reps. Thomas Suozzi (N.Y.), Bill Pascrell (N.J.) and Josh Gottheimer (N.J.) on Tuesday issued a joint statement vowing to oppose any efforts to change the tax code unless the SALT deduction is restored.

The issue could prove to be a serious stumbling block for House Democrats, who can only afford three defections with their razor-thin majority and still pass legislation on their own without any GOP support.

[...]

The SALT issue is rearing its head after years of efforts eliminate the cap. In late 2019, House Democrats — joined by five Republicans — passed a bill to temporarily get rid of the SALT cap.

Its repeal was also included in House Democrats’ COVID-19 relief bill last year. Democrats pushing for the SALT cap repeal opted against drawing a red line in negotiations over the $1.9 trillion stimulus package that Biden signed into law earlier this month.

But now they’re laying down a marker as Biden prepares to unveil the first part of his infrastructure plan on Wednesday in Pittsburgh.

[...]

The plan, which will focus on physical infrastructure such as roads, bridges, ports, airports, telecommunications and manufacturing, with a heavy emphasis on tackling climate change and building out green infrastructure, is expected to cost upward of $2 trillion. Another plan focusing on “social infrastructure” such as child care and early education is expected to cost upward of $1 trillion.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday that Biden would propose ways to pay for the entirety of the physical infrastructure plan.

Again, how about we repeal all of Trump's tax cuts for the rich? For a start.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Let the games begin!

A federal judge ruled Tuesday that a broad non-disclosure agreement that Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign required employees to sign is unenforceable.

U.S. District Court Judge Paul Gardephe’s ruling generally steered clear of the constitutional issues presented by such agreements in the context of political campaigns. Instead, the judge — an appointee of President George W. Bush — said the sweeping, boilerplate language the campaign compelled employees to sign was so vague that the agreement was invalid under New York contract law.

[...]

Gardephe’s 36-page decision said a non-disparagement clause in the agreement was similarly flawed.

“The Campaign’s past efforts to enforce the non-disclosure and non-disparagement provisions demonstrate that it is not operating in good faith to protect what it has identified as legitimate interests,” the judge added.

  Politico

Journalists allowed into detention facilities

With thousands of children and families arriving at the US-Mexico border in recent weeks and packing facilities, President Joe Biden has been under pressure to bring more transparency to the process. US Customs and Border Protection allowed two journalists from The Associated Press news agency and a crew from CBS to tour the facility in Donna, Texas, in the Rio Grande Valley on Tuesday.

[...]

The Biden administration has for the first time allowed journalists inside its main border detention facility for migrant children, revealing a severely overcrowded tent structure where more than 4,000 migrants, including children and families, were crammed into pods and the youngest kept in a large playpen with mats on the floor for sleeping.

  alJazeera

So, no change then. Except now the wire cages have been traded for a kiddie jail.

The facility has a capacity of 250 but more than 4,100 people were being housed on the property on Tuesday. Most were unaccompanied children processed in tents before being taken to shelters run by the Department of Health and Human Services and then placed with a family member, relative or sponsor.

[...]

On Tuesday, journalists watched children being processed. They went into a small room for lice inspection and a health check. Their hair was hosed down and towels were tossed in a black bin marked “Lice”. The minors — many of whom have made long journeys to get to the border, including stretches on foot — were also checked for scabies, fever and other ailments. No COVID-19 test was administered unless a child showed symptoms.

Nurse practitioners also gave psychological tests, asking children if they had suicidal thoughts. All shoelaces were removed to avoid harm to anyone.

The children were then led down a green turf hall to a large intake room. Those 14 and older are fingerprinted and have their photos taken; younger children did not.

Prison processing.

Then they were taken to a second intake room where they got notices to appear for immigration court. Border Patrol agents asked them if they had a contact in the US and allowed the child to speak with them by phone.

Children were given bracelets with a barcode that shows the history of when they showered and medical conditions

You saw this coming

Two U.S. Capitol police officers are suing former President Donald Trump, for allegedly inciting the riots that took over the Capitol building Jan. 6.

Officers James Blassingame and Sidney Hemby argue in court documents reviewed by NPR that Trump is responsible for the physical and emotional injuries the officers received following the violent riots at the Capitol. The insurrection resulted in the death of five people.

[...]

The officers are seeking unspecified monetary damages with the lawsuit. Documents say the "amount in controversy exceeds $75,000, not counting interest and costs."

  NPR

Not enough.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Grifters gonna grift

Remember how Trump was always going to do something or reveal something "in two weeks" ?  It was a recurring joke on liberal Twitter.

You may already know why he said it.  I just thought it was a Trumpian habit of speech.  I should have realized there was more to it and that the more was grift, because everything he did was grift.

I just listened to an interview with Denver Riggleman where he said something that might explain it. Probably explains it. Almost certainly explains it.

Riggleman was talking about Sidney Powell saying she's going to have more proof of a stolen election in 2 weeks, even as she claims in the Dominion lawsuit that no reasonable person would believe that shit! Riggleman said it's because she's raising money for her defense, and when raising money, it's considered it takes about 2 weeks to clear checks from the older rural people who donate that way.

Despicable.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Trump's Supreme Court still not operating entirely as it was meant to

The Supreme Court on Monday denied a bid by a right-wing government watchdog group to require former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton to face a deposition over her use of personal email while she served as secretary of State.

In an unsigned order issued without comment, the justices declined an appeal from Judicial Watch that followed a ruling last August by a federal appeals court panel which said Clinton could not be compelled to sit for a deposition.

  The Hill

I will be awaiting another "Statement of Donald J Trump, 45th President of the United States".

I may never be ready to offer Debbie Birx redemption

And she was a big part of that.

The White House coronavirus task force coordinator under former President Donald Trump says she believes the COVID-19 death toll in the country would have been “decreased substantially” had the previous government responded more effectively in the early days of the outbreak.

Dr Deborah Birx said that while the initial surge in March last year caught health officials off guard, better messaging and coordination from the government could have reduced the number of deaths later.

  alJazeera

And...why were they caught off guard? The Obama team handling the transition briefed them on the very real danger of a pandemic, and reports of this specific one were known in the international community from at least January last year.

“There were about 100,000 deaths that came from that original surge,” Birx said in an interview with CNN. “The rest of them, in my mind, could have been mitigated or decreased substantially.”

And yet, she stood up and spouted whatever nonsense she was told to spout.

In the CNN report, Admiral Brett Giroir, who headed the government’s testing effort, said the administration had lied about the number of publicly available tests, conflating available “components” needed to make the tests with ready-to-use tests.

And did Giroir say anything at the time? What's that? No?

Meanwhile, Dr Robert Redfield, director of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention under Trump, told the network that then-health secretary Alex M Azar and his allies had pressured him to revise weekly COVID-19 morbidity and mortality reports.

And he, of couse, did it.

Birx, who has faced criticism for not standing up more forcefully in public to Trump’s misinformation about the pandemic, recounted a “very uncomfortable” call with the former president after describing how widespread the virus was in an interview with CNN in August last year, during which she told people living in rural areas that they were not immune.

Poor baby. An uncomfortable call. Let's hear from covid patients about comfort. The ones who didn't die, of course.

“Everybody in the White House was upset with that interview and the clarity that I brought about the epidemic,” Birx said.

“I got called by the president. It was very uncomfortable, very direct, and very difficult to hear.”

Debbie would like us to believe, contrary to her actual role, that she's a hero in this story.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

It wasn't a bug - it was a feature

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

It's Sunday

Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson on Friday signed into law legislation allowing doctors to refuse to treat someone because of religious or moral objections, a move opponents have said will give providers broad powers to turn away LGBTQ patients and others.

The measure says health care workers and institutions have the right to not participate in non-emergency treatments that violate their conscience. The new law won’t take effect until late this summer.

  PBS

And hopefully not then, after some inevitable court hearings. But you never know these days after Trump's court packing spree.

“I support this right of conscience so long as emergency care is exempted and conscience objection cannot be used to deny general health service to any class of people,” Hutchinson said in a statement released by his office. “Most importantly, the federal laws that prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, sex, gender, and national origin continue to apply to the delivery of health care services.”

Opponents have said types of health care that could be cut off include maintaining hormone treatments for transgender patients needing in-patient care for an infection, or grief counseling for a same-sex couple. They’ve also said it could also be used to refuse to fill prescriptions for birth control, or by physicians assistants to override patient directives on end of life care

[...]

The state Chamber of Commerce [...] opposed the measure, saying it sends the wrong message about the state.

Wrong, but perhaps accurate.

The law is among several measures targeting transgender people that have easily advanced through the majority-Republican Legislature this year. Hutchinson on Thursday signed a law that will prohibit transgender women and girls from playing on sports teams consistent with their gender identity.

A final vote is scheduled Monday on another proposal that would prohibit gender confirming treatments and surgery for minors.

We have not yet dodged the bullet

It has been a while since former president Donald Trump said something as ridiculous as what he said Thursday night during an interview with Fox News’s Laura Ingraham.

  WaPo

That publicly, anyway.

Ingraham had asked the former president to opine on security at the U.S. Capitol, including on the once-imposing physical barriers that have recently been scaled back.

Trump said it was “disgraceful” and that it was “a political maneuver that they’re doing,” a vague “they” that, as usual, refers broadly to Trump’s opponents.

The former president then tried to rewrite history.

“Right from the start, it was zero threat,” Trump said of the Capitol. “Look, they went in. They shouldn’t have done it. Some of them went in and they’re — they’re hugging and kissing the police and the guards. You know, they had great relationships. A lot of the people were waved in and then they walked in and they walked out.”

“They're persecuting a lot of those people,” the former president said of those who had been arrested.

He did grudgingly then admit that some of those arrested were more problematic, just as he once grudgingly admitted that not all immigrants were criminals and just as he once grudgingly admitted that there were some white nationalists involved in Charlottesville. But now, as on those occasions, his most immediate assessment of what happened reveals his most honest opinion. Just as the reporting at the time indicated, Trump approved of the storming of the Capitol.

He not only approved; he called it forth.

The litany of law enforcement injuries is probably familiar to you now — concussions, bruises, a heart attack, death — and tells a very different and more accurate story than the one Trump offered.

It is ridiculous for Trump to make claims like this, but we're accustomed to such behavior. The familiarity of it, though, can blur how dangerous it is.

[...]

Shortly before Trump’s interview with Ingraham, [...] Fox News host Tucker Carlson welcomed the far-right personality Jesse Kelly.

[...]

“Things kind of break down at some point, don't they?” Carlson asked.

“They will break down. They are breaking down,” Kelly replied. “I’ve said this before and I’m telling you, I’m worried that I’m right: The right is going to pick a fascist within 10 to 20 years because they’re not going to be the only ones on the outs.”

“Right,” Carlson replied. “That's right.”

They're not worried about it; they're eagerly pushing for it.

“The inevitable counter to communism is fascism,” Kelly wrote on Twitter last month. “We will see a monster rise on the Right in response to the Left’s violence and censorship. It will be awful. But it is coming. I promise you that.”

[...]

Carlson and Ingraham pulled in millions of viewers last month and, on Thursday, hundreds of thousands saw Carlson nod at fascism as hundred of thousands more heard the former president reframe a fascistic attempt to undermine the results of the 2020 election with approval.

[...]

[T]hat commentary overlapped with real-world manifestations of how the political right is rejecting democracy.

One of the less obvious occurred in Missouri. Last November, voters were asked to weigh in on a proposal that would expand Medicaid coverage in the state. It passed by a 6-point margin.

Republicans in the state legislature, though, have blocked funding for the program. One offered an explicit rationale for opposing the move.

“Rural Missouri said no,” said State Rep. Sara Walsh (R). “I don’t believe it is the will of the people to bankrupt our state.”

This is not a unique case in Missouri where the voters approved something that the people in power decided didn't need to be implemented. And I doubt it's unique to Missouri. In fact, they tried to pull it off in the national election of 2020. They might not fail next time.

As Carlson’s show was airing Thursday, Gov. Brian Kemp (R-Ga.) was signing into law a bill that imposes new restrictions on voting in his state. It’s an odd turn of events for Kemp, given that he and other state Republicans were praised in the months after the 2020 election for rejecting Trump’s efforts to undermine confidence in the results in the state.

[...]

We've documented the GOP's shift away from small-l liberalism, but rarely have so many examples of that shift presented over such a short period of time. Many in the party are concerned about losing power in the face of an evolving American electorate and, as a result, many embrace the idea that democracy should or can be handcuffed.

"Canceled." 

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

What passes as a statement these days

There's been a slight delay in shipping

Story

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Another day, ANOTHER mass shooting

Two dead, 8 hospitalized in Virginia Beach.  No details.

Tackling the climate crisis

Joe Biden has invited 40 world leaders to a virtual summit on the climate crisis, the White House said in a statement on Friday.

Heads of state, including Xi Jinping of China and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, have been asked to attend the two-day meeting meant to mark Washington’s return to the front lines of the fight against human-caused climate change, after Donald Trump disengaged from the process.

[...]

The start of the summit on 22 April coincides with Earth Day, and will come ahead of a major UN meeting on the crisis, scheduled for November in Glasgow, Scotland.

Biden’s event is being staged entirely online due to the coronavirus pandemic.

[...]

The return [to the Paris Climate Agreement] of the world’s largest economy and second-largest emitter of carbon dioxide [the USA] became effective on 19 February and means almost all countries are now parties to the agreement signed in 2015.

[...]

The US has invited the leaders of the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate, which includes the 17 countries responsible for about 80% of global emissions and GDP, as well as heads of countries that are especially vulnerable to climate impacts or are demonstrating strong climate leadership.

The US president has placed global heating at the heart of his agenda and has already made waves domestically by pledging to make the energy sector emissions-neutral by 2035, followed by the economy as a whole by 2050.

He has also placed a hold on new oil and gas drilling on federal lands and offshore and is expected to soon seek a $2tn infrastructure package from Congress that would serve as the engine of future economic growth.

Biden dispatched his climate envoy, the former secretary of state John Kerry, to prepare the ground for the summit in meetings with European leaders earlier this month.

[...]

In an assessment of pledges made in recent months by around 75 countries and the European Union, UN Climate Change said that only about 30% of global emissions were covered in the commitments.

  Guardian

Cleaning up Trump's mess

The Biden administration is taking the unusual step of making a public accounting of the Trump administration’s political interference in science, drawing up a list of dozens of regulatory decisions that may have been warped by political interference in objective research.

[...]

It is particularly explicit at the Environmental Protection Agency, where President Biden’s political appointees said they felt that an honest accounting of past problems was necessary to assure career scientists that their findings would no longer be buried or manipulated.

In a blunt memo this month, one senior Biden appointee said political tampering under the Trump administration had “compromised the integrity” of some agency science. She cited specific examples, such as political leaders discounting studies that showed the harm of dicamba, a popular weedkiller that has been linked to cancer and subsequently ruling that its effectiveness outweighed its risks.

The broader list of decisions where staff say scientific integrity was violated is expected to reach about 90 items, according to one person involved in the process. It currently includes well-known controversies like the ricochet of decisions around Pebble Mine, a proposed copper and gold mine in Alaska’s Bristol Bay region, as well as rulings around relatively obscure toxic chemicals.

[...]

President Donald J. Trump’s well-documented attacks on science include doctoring a map with a black Sharpie to avoid acknowledging that he was wrong about the path of a hurricane and then pressuring scientists to back his false claim; meddling in federal coronavirus research; and pressuring regulators to approve Covid 19 vaccines and treatments.

Mr. Trump’s first administrator, Scott Pruitt, removed the agency’s web page on climate change (which has since been replaced); fired and barred independent scientific advisers who had received grants from the E.P.A. (a policy that a court ultimately found to be illegal) and then replaced them with many industry representatives; and rolled back scientifically-supported policies such as limiting pollution from trucks with rebuilt engines after meetings with executives and lobbyists. Mr. Pruitt’s successor, Andrew Wheeler, faced accusations that he repeatedly ignored and shut out his own scientists in decisions [...] .

[...]

Michal Freedhoff, the E.P.A.’s new acting assistant administrator in the office of chemical safety, agreed in a recent interview that disagreements over how science should inform policy are common in every administration. But, Ms. Freedhoff said, what she discovered shortly after she joined the agency in January went well beyond that, and beyond what she was expecting to find.

She said she has had briefings and meetings in which scientists have hesitated to explain how and why certain decisions were made during the Trump years, only to learn of multiple instances in which the researchers were told to disregard data or certain studies or were shut out of decision-making altogether.

Ms. Freedhoff also said career scientists and other employees had been forced to spend an “inordinate” amount of time helping politically connected companies obtain favorable classifications for their products.

[...]

“Manipulating, suppressing, or otherwise impeding science has real-world consequences for human health and the environment,” the E.P.A. administrator, Michael Regan, said in an agencywide email message on Tuesday. “When politics drives science rather than science informing policy, we are more likely to make policy choices that sacrifice the health of the most vulnerable among us.”

He asked employees to bring “any items of concern” to the agency’s scientific integrity officials or the independent inspector general and pledged to encourage “the open exchange of differing scientific and policy positions.”

“I also promise you that retaliation, retribution, intimidation, bullying, or other reprisals will not be tolerated,” Mr. Regan wrote.

  NYT

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

MAGA ... revive Jim Crow

The election of Warnock and Ossof has made the old white men desperate.

The same sentiment as an old Richard Prior joke about abusing an ex-wife and her trying to get out of the house:  "You can leave.  All you have to do is find some other way out of here besides that door."

Georgia state troopers arrested state Rep. Park Cannon on Thursday as she knocked on Gov. Brian Kemp’s door, interrupting his livestreamed announcement that he had signed an elections bill into law.

The officers forcibly removed Cannon, a Democrat from Atlanta, dragging her through the Capitol and pushing her into a police car. She was charged with obstruction of law enforcement and disrupting General Assembly sessions, according to the Georgia State Patrol and released on bond late Thursday.

  Atlanta Journal Constitution

Jesus Christ. Adding to the lawsuits Georgia Republicans are going to find themselves in after all this.

Cannon was with several other protesters when she knocked on Kemp’s office door, saying the public should be allowed to witness the announcement of the bill signing.

Outrageous.  Is there actually a law in Georgia against knocking on the governor's door during a bill signing?  I hope there's not a fire in the building when he's signing bills some day.  I think somebody's about to go to court.

Georgia state Representative Park Cannon spoke out against her arrest after she was released from police custody early Friday morning.

[...]

‘I am not the first Georgian to be arrested for fighting voter suppression. I’d love to say I’m the last, but we know that isn’t true,’ Rep. Cannon said.

  Yahoo

Safe bet there.

She continued, “We will not live in fear and we will not be controlled. We have a right to our future and a right to our freedom. We will come together and continue fighting white supremacy in all its forms.”

In an additional post, she thanked her pastor Rep. Raphael Warnock for his support.

[...]

According to CNN, Cannon faces two felony charges — felony obstruction and preventing or disrupting general assembly session.

Backed by the GOP’s Washington establishment, Republicans have been pushing extreme anti-voting legislation in almost every state, all under the guise of what they call “election integrity.” But the ugliness of Cannon’s arrest underscored the nefariousness of these bills: The Georgia law “suppresses voters, criminalizes compassion & seizes election authority from local + state officials,” Stacey Abrams tweeted Thursday. “It’s Jim Crow in a suit + tie.” California Rep. Ro Khanna called the laws “anti-American, racist, and a betrayal of our Constitution” and accused Kemp of committing “not simply an unjust act but a deeply unpatriotic one.”

[...]

[Democratic attorney Marc] Elias and the New Georgia Project, Rise, and Black Voters Matter are already challenging the law, which was met with protests outside the Georgia State Capitol. And in Washington, the disenfranchisement bill triggered outrage among Democrats, who have already been rallying to expand voting rights at the federal level. “The goal of voter suppression is to so demoralize the electorate that people don’t even bother to try, but that will not happen,” Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock, Cannon’s pastor, said in remarks after her arrest Thursday evening. Added Warnock, whose January run-off victory with Jon Ossoff gave Democrats control of Capitol Hill: “We are going to take this fight to give the people their voices back...from the red clay hills of Georgia all the way back, all the way to the United States Senate.”

Elias and the New Georgia Project, Rise, and Black Voters Matter are already challenging the law, which was met with protests outside the Georgia State Capitol. And in Washington, the disenfranchisement bill triggered outrage among Democrats, who have already been rallying to expand voting rights at the federal level. “The goal of voter suppression is to so demoralize the electorate that people don’t even bother to try, but that will not happen,” Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock, Cannon’s pastor, said in remarks after her arrest Thursday evening. Added Warnock, whose January run-off victory with Jon Ossoff gave Democrats control of Capitol Hill: “We are going to take this fight to give the people their voices back...from the red clay hills of Georgia all the way back, all the way to the United States Senate.”

  Vanity Fair

Can I get an "Amen"?

UPDATE:

Gabriel Sterling is the elections official who appeared prominently in the Georgia vote count bruhaha.

The law also strips Georgia’s secretary of state of his role as chief elections officer.

“I wouldn’t have written the bill this way,” said Sterling, the chief operating officer for the Secretary of State’s Office. “I definitely wouldn’t have written a bill that took my boss, Secretary Brad Raffensperger, who did a great job ... out of the role as chief elections officer of the state elections board.”

[...]

Raffensperger — and Sterling — staunchly defended the integrity of the state’s presidential election. Raffensperger’s office also released a tape of a shocking phone call to him from Trump calling on Raffensperger to “find” just enough votes to give him a victory over Biden after the election had been called. That conversation is now the subject of an investigation into possible illegal election tampering.

Sterling also accused Trump and his team of deliberately misleading the American public about the vote when he knew there was no fraud. Sterling has called the election the most secure and transparent election in Georgia history.

Nevertheless, Sterling supports the new voting law, insisting it’s not going to “suppress” voting rights. He said it will provide more assurance to voters that elections will be secure — even though any sense of insecurity was likely created by Trump’s “Big Lie” that the vote wasn’t legitimate.

“I get it, it doesn’t look great,” Sterling admitted.

  HuffPo

Understating the situation by an amazing distance.

UPDATE 4/7:

I should hope not!

False arrest charges?

Dominion sues Fox

It would be nice if they'd win their case against Fox and be awarded damages that put Fox out of business.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Only the best people

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

AstraZeneca vaccine

Wealthy Western countries which are buying up the other highly effective vaccines, are going to push these off on the poor countries, aren't they?

Pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca has released additional data that it said confirms the efficacy of its Covid-19 vaccine after questions about interim clinical trial results were raised in the US by an independent agency. But the additional data suggests the vaccine is slightly – but not significantly – less effective than the interim results suggested.

Interim results released by AstraZeneca on Monday from the phase-3 clinical trial of more than 32,000 people found the vaccine was 79% effective against symptomatic disease and 100% effective against severe disease and death. But soon after the results were published, the Data and Safety Monitoring Board in the US said it was concerned AstraZeneca may have provided “outdated information” from the trial, which gave “an incomplete view” of the results.

  Guardian

Well, guess what? Suddenly AstraZeneca found additional data. Like those additional votes Trump complained about.

This means there is a 95% chance that the true efficacy of the vaccine is between 68% to 82%, making it similar to other vaccines including Pfizer’s.

[...]

“We heard very positive news almost a week ago that the European Medical Authority’s safety committee concluded that the vaccine was not associated with an increase in the overall risk of blood clots and therefore the benefits of receiving the vaccine continue to outweigh the risk of side effects.”

Uh-huh. It's good enough for the poor countries.

Covid-19 vaccination

I got my first shot today of the Moderna vaccine.  (I actually had the virus in early January, so hopefully, after my second Moderna shot in a month, I will be well and truly protected and won't have to repeat that awful experience.) Since I never go to the doctor unless I'm in great pain, I'm not up on modern medical technology. So as much as the methodology of the vaccine itself, I was impressed with the methodology of the shooting - or jabbing, if you're in the UK. 

Maybe I'm the last to know this, but they have self-healing bandages...

It's a washer-shaped foam bandage about a millimeter thick with a paper-thin rubbery self-healing film on one side.  They stick it on your arm, film side up, and give you the shot through the film.  Any bleeding is absorbed by the foam.  No bloody cotton balls to dispose of in the clinic.  If you have tainted blood, you keep it to yourself.

I bet I'd have been dumbfounded if I had felt good enough the night I spent in the hospital with covid to have realized what all the equipment in my room did.  I did find it pretty exciting that the bed had built-in scales so I didn't have to get up and stand on something.  

Yes, you're right.  I'm very easily entertained.  Especially by technology.

Get your vaccination.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Downgraded

The luxury travel agency Virtuoso will no longer list Trump Organization properties on its website, a spokesperson for the company said.

A Virtuoso spokeswoman confirmed in a statement reported by multiple outlets that Trump hotels were no longer a preferred partner of the company, and as of last week the properties were no longer listed on its website.

  The Hill

Can I presume they've been waiting four years to do this?

“It’s a big deal because Virtuoso is very well-respected in the industry,” analyst Henry Harteveldt, of the Atmosphere Research Group, told the newspaper. “It serves a very elite base of customers and its actions are often studied by others. With Virtuoso doing this, some travel agencies that may have been debating whether or not to do it could decide well, if Virtuoso has done this, we too will end our professional relationship with the Trump hotels.”

DC statehood - it's overdue

Good one, Claire.

While McConnell is right to suspect that admitting Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia now would shift the balance in Congress toward the Democrats, the Republican Party has historically taken far more effective advantage of the addition of new states.

In 1889 and 1890, Congress added North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Washington, Idaho, and Wyoming—the largest admission of states since the original 13. This addition of 12 new senators and 18 new electors to the Electoral College was a deliberate strategy of late-19th-century Republicans to stay in power after their swing toward Big Business cost them a popular majority.

  The Atlantic

Only in America

In a motion to dismiss a complaint by the large US-based voting machine company Dominion, lawyers for Sidney Powell argued that elaborate conspiracies she laid out on television and radio last November while simultaneously suing to overturn election results in four states constituted legally protected first amendment speech.

“No reasonable person would conclude that the statements were truly statements of fact,” argued lawyers for Powell, a former federal prosecutor from Texas who caught Trump’s attention through her involvement in the defense of former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

  Guardian

Sort of the insanity plea in reverse. My client isn't nuts, you are. 

A similar defense was made on behalf of Tucker Carlson. It worked, so I guess we'll be seeing this attempt more often in the future.

Powell falsely stated on television and in legal briefs that Dominion machines ran on technology that could switch votes away from Trump, technology she said had been invented in Venezuela to help steal elections for the late Hugo Chávez.

Those lies were built on empty claims that apparently originated in anonymous comments on a pro-Trump blog, only to be amplified on a global scale by Trump himself in a 12 November tweet in which he wrote in part “REPORT: DOMINION DELETED 2.7 MILLION TRUMP VOTES NATIONWIDE.”

Citing lost business and reputational damage, Dominion filed a $1.3bn defamation lawsuit against Powell and her colleague on Trump’s legal team, Rudy Giuliani. A Dominion employee separately sued the Trump campaign after receiving death threats.

I look forward to Rudy using the same defense.

“It was clear to reasonable persons that Powell’s claims were her opinions and legal theories on a matter of utmost public concern,” her legal motion says. “Those members of the public who were interested in the controversy were free to, and did, review that evidence and reached their own conclusions – or awaited resolution of the matter by the courts before making up their minds.”

I wonder if they're going to have to argue that Trump supporters are not "reasonable" people, and therefore shouldn't be considered for purposes of the lawsuit.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.