...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
Sunday, October 31, 2021
Better headline: Donald Trump still an asshole
Because of course he does.
And his wife is still an asshole, too.
Saturday, October 30, 2021
About time
This will only last until Trump gets back in office in 2024.White collar prosecutions fell to an all-time low during Trump's administration, according to data compiled by Syracuse University. Even before then, the Justice Department was criticized for failing to hold Wall Street executives accountable for the 2007-2009 financial crisis.
The department will require companies to name all people involved in misconduct in order to receive credit for cooperation, as opposed to the previous policy under which companies provided names of people deemed to have been "substantially involved," [Deputy Attorney General Lisa] Monaco said.
The department also will require prosecutors to consider a company's full criminal, civil and regulatory record when considering how to resolve an investigation into wrongdoing, Monaco said. Previously the department focused primarily on similar types of misconduct when weighing a settlement.
[...]
The department also will reverse its shift away from requiring corporate monitors, Monaco said. The use of these independent firms, which tend to be costly for companies, fell out of favor during the Trump administration.
It also will embed a new squad of FBI agents within the department's Criminal Fraud section, which is tasked with pursuing economic crimes, Monaco added.
Reuters
The last honest Republican is retiring
I'm not counting Liz Cheney. While she's still running, she's going to be defeated.Rep. Adam Kinzinger’s (R-Ill.) announcement that he will retire after his current term marks the latest victory in former President Trump’s quest to purge his internal critics from the GOP and mold the Republican Party even more in his own image.
The Hill
And this is what we get for sticking to the two-party system of governance.While the 10 lawmakers who voted to impeach Trump saw their national profiles rise, leading to a surge in fundraising for some of them, their criticisms have also thrust them into political peril.
[...]
Trump spiked the football shortly after Kinzinger’s announcement Friday, exclaiming in a statement, “2 down, 8 to go!”
[...]
Kinzinger is the second of the 10 to announce an early retirement, following Rep. Anthony Gonzalez (R-Ohio), who was also thought to be a rising party star. And most of the remaining eight lawmakers are facing serious primary challenges.
That, along with the isolation some of those Republicans are facing within the House GOP conference, is sparking speculation that still more retirements are coming.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
Friday, October 29, 2021
Snowflake of the week
Heads up, Texans.A Texas Republican lawmaker has drawn up a list of 850 books on subjects ranging from racism to sexuality that could “make students feel discomfort,” and is demanding that school districts across the state report whether any are in their classrooms or libraries.
State Rep. Matt Krause, R-Fort Worth, also wants to know how many copies of each book the districts have and how much money they spent on them, according to a letter he sent Monday to Lily Laux, deputy commissioner of school programs at the Texas Education Agency, and several school district superintendents.
Krause, who chairs the state’s House Committee on General Investigating, also directed the districts to identify “any other books” that could cause students “guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress because of their race or sex or convey that a student, by virtue of their race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.”
[...]
Krause is one of several candidates running to be the state’s next attorney general.
NBC
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
Democrats cutting some of the most popular/best parts
Let us hope some of these things they cut will be brought up in future separate bills.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
UPDATE: NPR explains budget reconciliation.
Thursday, October 28, 2021
Mother nature using Walmart distribution to rid herself of human scourge
Sure. That shit's already been thrown out.Four cases of a serious, sometimes fatal infection called melioidosis that have bedeviled public health investigators for months appear to have been linked to an aromatherapy room spray sold at Walmart.
[...]
The product, Better Homes and Gardens Lavender and Chamomile Essential Oil Infused Aromatherapy Room Spray with Gemstones, was sold at 55 Walmart locations and on the company’s website from February to Oct. 21. Walmart has issued a recall for roughly 3,900 bottles of the product that it sold. The recall includes five other scents of the Better Homes and Gardens Gem Room Spray: lemon and mandarin, lavender, peppermint, lime and eucalyptus, and sandalwood and vanilla.
[...]
The bottle tested positive for contamination with Burkholderia pseudomallei, the bacterium that causes melioidosis. It is commonly found in soil and water in parts of South and Southeastern Asia, and northern Australia, but not in the continental United States, where it’s classified as a dangerous pathogen that could threaten public health.
[...]
The euphoria of finding the source of the bacteria was quickly dampened by the realization that the product was something being sold at Walmart, McQuiston said.
“We were very concerned when we found this bacteria in this bottle and began to imagine what the distribution number might look like across the United States,” she said. But then came some good news: Walmart revealed that the product was new to the chain and being sold as a test in a limited number of stores. Furthermore, not much of the product — at least not in Walmart terms — had been sold.
McQuiston said the CDC has been working with Walmart and the product’s manufacturer to see, among other things, whether the manufacturer makes other products that might be contaminated. That work continues.
[...]
The CDC is suggesting that people who have used the product in the past 21 days who have symptoms consistent with melioidosis should seek medical care and tell the attending doctor about the aromatherapy spray exposure. People who have no symptoms but have used the spray in the past seven days should also see a doctor, who may prescribe antibiotics to prevent infection, the CDC said.
[...]
People should not dispose of the product themselves — doing so could spread the bacteria further. Instead, they should double bag bottles in clear plastic bags, place them in a small box and return them Walmart.
Pretty much anything then.Agency officials advised that any sheets or linens sprayed with the product should be washed and dried in a hot dryer, with bleach if desired. Surfaces the product might have been sprayed on should be cleaned with an undiluted disinfectant. People should wash their hands thoroughly after performing these tasks.
About a dozen cases of melioidosis are discovered in this country in any given year; they are almost always seen in people who have returned from traveling in Southeast Asia or northern Australia, where the bacteria are found in soil and water. People contract melioidosis by exposure to the bacteria via cuts in the skin or by consuming food or water contaminated with the bacteria.
Melioidosis has an estimated fatality rate of between 10% and 50%. People with some health conditions are at greater risk of severe if they contract the illness; those health conditions include diabetes, alcoholism, kidney disease, and chronic lung disease.
[...]
There are four types of infection: localized, in the lungs, bloodstream infection, or disseminated infection, in which a localized infection spreads to another part of the body. Treatment depends on the type of infection, but consists of oral or intravenous antibiotics.
Melioidosis symptoms may include localized pain or swelling, fever or high fever, skin ulcers or abscesses, cough, chest pain, headache, anorexia, respiratory distress, abdominal discomfort, joint pain, disorientation, weight loss, stomach or chest pain, muscle or joint pain, and seizures, the CDC website states.
Wednesday, October 27, 2021
Shall we admit Congressional fines are not working?
Let me guess: she doesn't plan on ever paying the fines.
Or, in the alternative, she'll just grift MAGAland for donations to pay them.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
These Trump Believers are terrorists
Time to treat them as such.
UPDATE:
I don't know how you identify them, but there should be an all-out federal push to do so.
Tuesday, October 26, 2021
Texas is in a hurry to get back to the dark ages
First denying abortion rights, now...
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
Monday, October 25, 2021
No surprise here
Exactly the list you would predict.[S]ome of the planners of the pro-Trump rallies that took place in Washington, D.C., have begun communicating with congressional investigators and sharing new information about what happened when the former president’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol. Two of these people have spoken to Rolling Stone extensively in recent weeks and detailed explosive allegations that multiple members of Congress were intimately involved in planning both Trump’s efforts to overturn his election loss and the Jan. 6 events that turned violent.
Rolling Stone separately confirmed a third person involved in the main Jan. 6 rally in D.C. has communicated with the committee. This is the first report that the committee is hearing major new allegations from potential cooperating witnesses. [...] The two sources also claim they interacted with members of Trump’s team, including former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who they describe as having had an opportunity to prevent the violence.
[...]
“I remember Marjorie Taylor Greene specifically,” the organizer says. “I remember talking to probably close to a dozen other members at one point or another or their staffs.”
[...]
These two sources also helped plan a series of demonstrations that took place in multiple states around the country in the weeks between the election and the storming of the Capitol. According to these sources, multiple people associated with the March for Trump and Stop the Steal events that took place during this period communicated with members of Congress throughout this process.
[...]
[In addition to Greene,] the pair both say the members who participated in these conversations or had top staffers join in included Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.), Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), and Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas).
Rolling Stone
Planning the protests against the election isn't illegal. The problem is with planning the break-in.Gosar, who has been one of the most prominent defenders of the Jan. 6 rioters, allegedly took things a step further. Both sources say he dangled the possibility of a “blanket pardon” in an unrelated ongoing investigation to encourage them to plan the protests.
“Our impression was that it was a done deal,” the organizer says, “that he’d spoken to the president about it in the Oval … in a meeting about pardons and that our names came up. They were working on submitting the paperwork and getting members of the House Freedom Caucus to sign on as a show of support.”
[...]
The rally planner describes the pardon as being offered while “encouraging” the staging of protests against the election. While the organizer says they did not get involved in planning the rallies solely due to the pardon, they were upset that it ultimately did not materialize.
[...]
Rolling Stone has separately obtained documentary evidence that both sources were in contact with Gosar and Boebert on Jan. 6. We are not describing the nature of that evidence to preserve their anonymity
[...]
Nick Dyer, who is Greene’s communications director, said she was solely involved in planning to object to the electoral certification on the House floor. Spokespeople for the other members of Congress, who the sources describe as involved in the planning for protests, did not respond to requests for comment.
[...]
In another indication members of Congress may have been involved in planning the protests against the election, Ali Alexander, who helped organize the “Wild Protest,” declared in a since-deleted livestream broadcast that Gosar, Brooks, and Biggs helped him formulate the strategy for that event.
“I was the person who came up with the Jan. 6 idea with Congressman Gosar, Congressman Mo Brooks, and Congressman Andy Biggs,” Alexander said at the time. “We four schemed up on putting maximum pressure on Congress while they were voting so that — who we couldn’t lobby — we could change the hearts and the minds of Republicans who were in that body hearing our loud roar from outside.”
That needs to be done ASAP, or perhaps - for the most political impact - closer to the 2022 elections.The two potential witnesses plan to present to the committee allegations about how these demonstrations were funded and to detail communications between organizers and the White House. According to both sources, members of Trump’s administration and former members of his campaign team were involved in the planning. Both describe Katrina Pierson, who worked for Trump’s campaign in 2016 and 2020, as a key liaison between the organizers of protests against the election and the White House.
[...]
Both sources also describe Trump’s White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, as someone who played a major role in the conversations surrounding the protests on Jan. 6.
[...]
“Meadows was 100 percent made aware of what was going on,” says the organizer. “He’s also like a regular figure in these really tiny groups of national organizers.”
[...]
While it was already clear members of Congress played some role in the Jan. 6 events and similar rallies that occurred in the lead-up to that day, the two sources say they can provide new details about the members’ specific roles in these efforts. The sources plan to share that information with congressional investigators right away. While both sources say their communications with the House’s Jan. 6 committee thus far have been informal, they are expecting to testify publicly.
Republicans and autocrats don't like it when people are able to vote.Both of the sources made clear that they still believe in Trump’s agenda. They also have questions about how his election loss occurred. The two sources say they do not necessarily believe there were issues with the actual vote count. However, they are concerned that Democrats gained an unfair advantage in the race due to perceived social media censorship of Trump allies and the voting rules that were implemented as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
I'm guessing the latter reason is a real one, while the former is B.S.Despite their remaining affinity for Trump and their questions about the vote, both sources say they were motivated to come forward because of their concerns about how the pro-Trump protests against the election ultimately resulted in the violent attack on the Capitol. Of course, with their other legal issues and the House investigation, both of these sources have clear motivation to cooperate with investigators and turn on their former allies.
Naturally.And both of their accounts paint them in a decidedly favorable light compared with their former allies.
No argument there.“The reason I’m talking to the committee and the reason it’s so important is that — despite Republicans refusing to participate … this commission’s all we got as far as being able to uncover the truth about what happened at the Capitol that day,” the organizer says. “It’s clear that a lot of bad actors set out to cause chaos. … They made us all look like shit.”
I'd like to know what the fuck they expected. It's Trump.“The breaking point for me [on Jan. 6 was when] Trump starts talking about walking to the Capitol,” the organizer says. “I was like. ‘Let’s get the fuck out of here.’ ”
“I do kind of feel abandoned by Trump,” says the planner. “I’m actually pretty pissed about it and I’m pissed at him.”
The organizer offers an even more succinct assessment when asked what they would say to Trump.
“What the fuck?” the organizer says.
Good point, Fred.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
If true, that puts Trump squarely in play for urging the Ellipse crowd to march on the Capitol.Heading into Jan. 6, both sources say, the plan they had discussed with other organizers, Trump allies, and members of Congress was a rally that would solely take place at the Ellipse.
Thank Trump.A senior staffer for a Republican member of Congress, who was also granted anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation, similarly says they believed the events would only involve supporting objections on the House floor. The staffer says their member was engaged in planning that was “specifically and fully above board.”
“A whole host of people let this go a totally different way,” the senior Republican staffer says. “They fucked it up for a lot of people who were planning to present evidence on the House floor. We were pissed off at everything that happened.”
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
UPDATE:
It's not over. It's ongoing.
Hunger strike to save the planet
When was the last time you saw a hunger strike in the US?
The strike began on October 20.Sitting in the sun across the street from the White House, 18-year-old Ema Govea holds a black and yellow sign saying she is on a hunger strike to demand action against climate change.
[...]
She and four other activists from Sunrise Movement, an environmental advocacy group, began their protest on Wednesday. They say they will not eat until President Joe Biden follows through on his campaign promises to enact meaningful measures to cut greenhouse gas emissions and transition the US to a green economy.
[...]
The hunger strikers want Biden to push for the full $3.5 trillion in his proposed social spending agenda that includes measures to cut carbon emissions and mitigate the effects of climate change.
[...]
“It’s clear that he wants to be a climate leader. But at this point, it is all talk, no action,” she said.
[...]
Earlier this week, several US agencies released reports highlighting the adverse impact that climate change is expected to have on global stability and US national security.
But activists say there is a gap between the administration’s rhetoric and actions.
Kidus Girma, one of the hunger strikers, slammed the president for negotiating with Manchin and Sinema behind closed doors instead of calling them out publicly to back his agenda.
[...]
Activists say this year has been a turning point in the predicted physical effects of climate change becoming a reality in the United States. Droughts, floods, enormous wildfires, deadly heat waves and hurricanes have struck the country in alarming frequency and intensity.
Julia Paramo, a 24-year-old activist, said her hometown of Dallas is still feeling the “trauma” of the unprecedented cold wave early in 2021 that caused widespread power outages across Texas leading to 210 deaths in the state.
“Us or Exxon,” Paramo had written on her forehead in a message against the fossil fuel industry. Like other hunger strikers, she was sitting in a wheelchair to conserve her own energy.
alJazeera
Charlottesville trial
Yes, but it didn't end the movement.Four years [after the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va.], jury selection is set for Monday in a case seen as the most sweeping attempt yet to hold to account those associated with the march. To do so, those behind the suit are taking a page from a decades-old playbook: they're turning to civil litigation in an attempt to put extremists out of business.
[...]
"We have had a number of issues with effective returns in criminal trials for reasons ranging from ingrained problems in our legal system that have to do with long histories of white supremacy, to all kinds of procedural problems that have derailed justice in one way or another," [Kathleen Belew, a historian at the University of Chicago] said. "Civil trials are a really good tool in hitting the pocketbooks and the membership lists of white power groups."
[...]
In 1987, SPLC [Southern Poverty Law Center] lawyers won a $7-million judgment on behalf of Beulah Mae Donald, whose 19-year-old son, Michael, had been abducted and brutally murdered by members of United Klans of America in Mobile, Ala. The group had to turn over their building to Ms. Donald and the suit effectively shut down its activities.
Similarly, the SPLC won multimillion-dollar judgments from the Christian Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, White Aryan Resistance, Aryan Nations and Imperial Klans of America in later civil lawsuits. They were all forced into turning over their assets to satisfy court judgments.
NPR
Cryptocurrency: the preferred currency of criminals."In the the cases where we were litigating against the Klan in the 80s, they had property, physical land, and they had buildings and bank accounts that could be seized and taken," said Scott McCoy, interim deputy legal director for LGBTQ rights and special litigation at the Southern Poverty Law Center. "It's harder now in the digital age because a lot of these groups don't have those kind of assets. Their assets are in cryptocurrency and it's much harder to find and get at and attach those kind of assets."
McCoy is part of a legal team that represented Tanya Gersh, a Montana woman who sued Andrew Anglin in 2017 for organizing an anti-Semitic harassment campaign against her family.
Anglin runs a neo-Nazi website, and is also among the 24 namIn a pre-trial court hearing, defendant Richard Spencer, a white nationalist who coined the term "Alt-Right," referred to the case as "financially crippling." He also acknowledged in an interview on a far-right YouTube channel that the lawsuit has led him to cut back public appearances for fear of being sued.ed defendants in the Charlottesville trial. Gersh won a $14 million judgment against Anglin, but collecting on that has been a challenge. According to McCoy, Anglin has kept his money in Bitcoin, which has made it difficult to track.
If you can't stop them, slow them down, I guess?Nonetheless, attorneys in the Virginia case say there's evidence that tying defendants up in a protracted and costly lawsuit has already disrupted their activity and influence.
[...]
"One of the most striking facts to me in this case is that Charlottesville was really Charlottesville 2.0," said Dunn, referring to the fact that some of the participants had taken part in an earlier event in that city, which they had dubbed "Charlottesville 1.0," in May 2017. "There was every intention for there to be a Charlottesville 3.0, which did not happen, in part because of this case.
[...]
"In a pre-trial court hearing, defendant Richard Spencer, a white nationalist who coined the term "Alt-Right," referred to the case as "financially crippling." He also acknowledged in an interview on a far-right YouTube channel that the lawsuit has led him to cut back public appearances for fear of being sued.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
Sunday, October 24, 2021
How long will this go on?
I can only surmise that there's something truly devastating for the government or a friend of the government to keep this 50+-year-old (nearly 60) information concealed.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
SCOTUS ruling
I don't feel good about any of this. I think Roe v. Wade will be undercut sooner rather than later. The US is well on its way to becoming a rule-by-minority country. And that minority is right-wing religious. American Democracy had its run.Setting up what has been called a “critical” moment on access to abortion in the United States, the nation’s Supreme Court agreed to hear a challenge by the Biden administration and abortion providers to a Texas law that imposes a near-total ban on the procedure.
The court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, said Friday they will decide whether the federal government has the right to sue over the law. Answering that question will help determine whether the law should be blocked while legal challenges continue. Arguments are set for November 1.
[...]
The Texas law is unusual in that it gives private citizens the power to enforce it by enabling them to sue anyone who performs or assists a woman in getting an abortion after cardiac activity is detected in the embryo. That feature has helped shield the law from being immediately blocked as it made it more difficult to directly sue the state. Individual citizens can be awarded a minimum of $10,000 for bringing successful lawsuits.
[...]
On December 1, the court will be hearing arguments on a case from Mississippi, a state that is asking the high court to uphold its ban on most abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy.
alJazeera
Missouri needs to throw the governor out with the garbage
Gov. Mike Parson escalated his war with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Wednesday when his political operation published a video doubling down on his attack against a reporter who informed the state that a state website revealed teacher Social Security numbers.
[...]
The ad comes less than a week after Parson’s widely criticized demand for an investigation and prosecution of the reporter who discovered the security flaw in a state website, along with “all those involved.” Parson read a statement calling the reporter “a hacker” to reporters gathered outside his Missouri Capitol office last Thursday, then left without taking questions.
[...]
In the incident that enraged Parson, a Post-Dispatch reporter found that Social Security numbers for teachers, administrators and counselors was visible in the HTML code of a publicly accessible site operated by the state education department. HTML code is the programming that tells the computer how to display a web page.
The newspaper informed the state of the problem and promised not to publish any story until the issue was fixed.
“We stand by our reporting and our reporter who did everything right,” Post-Dispatch Publisher Ian Caso said in a story in his newspaper. “It’s regrettable the governor has chosen to deflect blame onto the journalists who uncovered the website’s problem and brought it to DESE’s attention.”
Missouri Independent
What's regrettable is that we have Parson as our governor.
The Highway Patrol?Parson said the Missouri State Highway Patrol would investigate and that Cole County Prosecuting Attorney Locke Thompson had been notified.
After having done some substitute teaching for a few months a couple of years ago, I received a letter this time about a possible breach, but I don't recall that September letter.The video continuing the attack on the Post-Dispatch was posted online as Democrats on the House Budget Committee continued to question Parson’s estimate that it will take $50 million to respond “to this one incident alone and divert workers and resources from other state agencies.”
The Public Schools and Education Employees Retirement System responded to a different potential data exposure on Sept. 11 by offering all 350,000 members credit monitoring, identity theft protection and the services of a call center through a contract with Experian, according to Dearld Snider, the agency’s executive director.
The cost of that response was just under $600,000.
And so what if it does? Is Parson suggesting that the cost of the state's failure excuses it?And since there is likely a large amount of overlap between the people who have education credentials registered with the education department and those who are members of the retirement system, [State Rep. Peter] Merideth believes the ultimate cost will come nowhere near Parson’s $50 million figure.
Acting ethically is something Governor Parson knows nothing about.“I wouldn’t be surprised if it was less than $100,000 for credit monitoring,” Merideth said.
The biggest cost, he said, will be studying the state’s computer systems and upgrading them to provide better service and security.
“It is not about what the reporter did,” Merideth said, “it is about the vulnerability and the outdated systems we have.”
[...]
The Missouri National Education Association said it is still trying to understand exactly what happened, both with the data that the Post-Dispatch found and the potential data loss at the retirement system, said spokesman Mark Jones.
“It is important we take data security as seriously as physical security,” Jones said.
The union has not joined Parson’s call for prosecution of the journalist.
“There is nothing that indicates to me,” Jones said, “that the reporter did anything but act ethically within the bounds of good journalism.”
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
Totally believable
It was Reagan's defense - "I forgot." It worked for him.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
Maybe Eastman can remember who he sent the memo to when he finished writing it. That could jog his memory on who asked for it.
How many people are on "the legal team"?In seeking to compel testimony from [Steve] Bannon, the congressional panel investigating Jan. 6 this week cited his reported presence at the “ ‘war room’ organized at the Willard [hotel near the White House].” The House voted Thursday to hold Bannon in contempt of Congress after he refused to comply with the committee’s subpoena.
The committee has also requested documents and communications related to [legal scholar and Trump adviser John] Eastman’s legal advice and analysis.
[...]
They were led by Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani. Former chief White House strategist Stephen K. Bannon was an occasional presence as the effort’s senior political adviser. Former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik was there as an investigator. Also present was John Eastman, the scholar, who outlined scenarios for denying Biden the presidency in an Oval Office meeting on Jan. 4 with Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.
[...]
Also present was One America News reporter Christina Bobb, a lawyer by training who was volunteering for the campaign at the time, according to people familiar with the operation.
They sought to make the case to Pence and ramp up pressure on him to take actions on Jan. 6 that Eastman suggested were within his powers, three people familiar with the operation said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.
[...]
On Jan. 2, Trump, Giuliani and Eastman spoke to 300 state legislators via a conference call meant to arm them with purported evidence of fraud and galvanize them to take action to “decertify” their election results. “You are the real power,” Trump told the state lawmakers, according to a Washington Examiner report. “You’re the ones that are going to make the decision.”
[...]Three days after the call, dozens of lawmakers from Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin wrote to Pence. They asked that he delay certification of Biden’s victory for 10 days to allow “our respective bodies to meet, investigate, and as a body vote on certification or decertification of the election.”
[...]
But after other efforts failed, as Jan. 6 neared, the Eastman strategy came into bloom. Eastman, a Federalist Society member, law professor and former clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, had the conservative legal credentials to burnish the argument. Eastman’s first memo, only two pages long, described a six-point plan by which Pence could effectively commandeer the electoral counting process and enable Trump to win. The memo was first revealed last month in the book “Peril,” by Washington Post writers Bob Woodward and Robert Costa.
[...]
Eastman has said it was a “preliminary draft” of a more complete and nuanced memo that outlined multiple possible outcomes following the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6. The ideas in the memos were the basis for a discussion of options Pence had with Eastman and Trump in the Oval Office on Jan. 4, he has said.
Eastman has more recently distanced himself from the memos, telling the National Review on Friday that the options he outlined did not represent his advice. He said he wrote the memos at the request of “somebody in the legal team” whose name he could not recall.
[...]
The effort underscores the extent to which Trump and a handful of true believers were working until the last possible moment to subvert the will of the voters, seeking to pressure Pence to delay or even block certification of the election, leveraging any possible constitutional loophole to test the boundaries of American democracy.
WaPo
That rather puts the lie to his claim that the memo options "did not represent his advice". And not remembering who asked for the memo is unbelievable on its face. Let me guess: Eastman will not be answering questions from the January 6 committee. Lying to reporters is one thing. Lying to Congress carries consequences (supposedly).[J.Michael] Luttig, a former federal appellate judge well known to Trump and for whom Eastman had clerked early in his career, told Pence’s staff on Jan. 4 that the analysis Eastman offered in his first memo was “incorrect.” Luttig said subsequently that Eastman’s advice was wrong “at every turn,” including his suggestion that the vice president could delay the electoral vote count.
[...]
[B]y Jan. 5, Pence was not sold on the plan, according to “Peril.” That evening, Trump called over to Giuliani and then to Bannon, who were both at the Willard at the time, according to the book, which reported some details of the events at the Willard that day. Trump told Bannon that Pence had been “very arrogant” when the two discussed the matter earlier in the day, the book reported. The following day, Eastman spoke at the rally on the Ellipse.
“All we are demanding of Vice President Pence is this afternoon at one o’clock he let the legislatures of the states look into this so that we get to the bottom of it and the American people know whether we have control of the direction of our government or not!” Eastman told the crowd. “We no longer live in a self-governing republic if we can’t get the answer to this question!”
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
UPDATE:
And if Trump gets back in the White House (or perhaps any Republican at this point), what we'll be as a country is a "bad mafia movie".
Saturday, October 23, 2021
Dems don't realize how dire their situation is
And the Dem establishment's answer is: get out the vote.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
Friday, October 22, 2021
What gives?
The Biden administration has been trying to get Neera Tanden a position since the beginning. What does she have on whom?
And there's this. And that email to John Podesta about Hillary, for whom she worked.
And that's good for her, because she might not get it.
Perhaps another reason the Republicans didn't like her...Tanden was Biden’s first choice to lead the Office of Management and Budget but assumed a role as a White House senior adviser instead after she hit serious roadblocks in her confirmation process.
Republicans angered over her political tweets during her years leading the Center for American Progress blocked her nomination, and the White House could not secure 50 Senate Democrats to back her.
[...]
Biden has yet to select a new nominee for OMB director, a position that Shalanda Young has held in an acting capacity for several months.
Here's why I don't like her:Tanden is a longtime adviser to former secretary of state Hillary Clinton.
And there's this. And that email to John Podesta about Hillary, for whom she worked.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
There is no industry more corrupt than the financial industry
The back story:The Federal Reserve will ban policy makers and other senior officials from buying individual stocks and bonds and will also restrict active trading after an ethics scandal led to the departure of two regional presidents and undermined confidence in the central bank.
Under the new policies, senior Fed officials — including regional bank presidents, Washington governors and senior staff — will be limited to purchasing diversified investment vehicles such as mutual funds, the central bank said in a statement Thursday.
Other rules “to help guard against even the appearance of any conflict of interest in the timing of investment decisions” include providing 45 days’ advance notice for buying and selling securities, obtaining prior approval for such transactions and holding investments for at least one year. Additionally, “no purchases or sales will be allowed during periods of heightened financial market stress,” the Fed said.
alJazeera
Warren's raison d'etre has been financial industry reform. She seems to be pretty much alone.Robert Kaplan, president of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank, in 2020 traded millions of dollars of stock in companies such as Apple, Amazon, and Google, while Eric Rosengren, president of the Boston Fed, traded in stocks and real estate investment trusts, according to financial disclosure forms. Both pledged last week to divest those holdings after they were reported by The Wall Street Journal.
Comments made by Fed regional presidents can move markets and they have a hand in the Fed’s interest rate policies. Such high-placed officials often have exclusive access to discussions about upcoming policy shifts that could benefit or be detrimental to some economic sectors.
[...]
Both Kaplan and Rosengren said last week that their trades were permitted under the Fed’s ethics rules. But they also said they would sell their holdings the end of this month and place the money in index funds, which track a wide range of securities, or in cash.
[...]
The Fed has come under criticism for worsening wealth inequality by pushing up the value of stock portfolios.
The Fed’s purchase of mortgage-backed bonds, which are issued by mortgage buyers such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, has been criticized by some other regional bank presidents for contributing to the run-up in home prices in the past year.
[...]
In a prepared statement Thursday, the Fed said that Chair Jerome Powell late last week requested a “fresh and comprehensive look at the ethics rules around permissible financial holdings and activities by senior Fed officials.”
The statement came after letters were sent Wednesday by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, to all 12 regional Fed banks, urging that they ban the ownership of stocks by senior officials.
[...]
Warren has introduced legislation that would bar stock ownership by members of Congress, Cabinet Secretaries, and other high-ranking officials.
PBS
The bill
By all means, don't raise taxes on corporations. I wonder why Kyrsten Sinema insisted on that.[O]ne sign of progress came late Thursday afternoon. [Arizona senator Kyrsten] Sinema has now agreed to a package of tax changes that would meet the president's goal of fully paying for the social spending package, according to a source familiar with Sinema's thinking. These changes would not impact the corporate rate, according to this source.
NPR
Citizens United (aided and abetted by the Supreme Court) is destroying America.
For a mere 14,000 people in West Virginia's coal industry, the planet will die as far as Manchin is concerned.The president had touted the Clean Energy Performance Program (CEPP), which provides incentives for utility companies to switch to greener technologies and fines those who don't, as the centerpiece of his climate agenda. He saw it as a tool that could achieve his goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2030. But the program has been dropped because Manchin, who represents a state heavily reliant on coal production, doesn't support it.
Sure.Biden, Pelosi and other congressional Democrats, are scheduled to travel to the COP26 climate change conference in Scotland at the end of the month, so negotiators are sorting through various other proposals that Manchin can back — a mix of tax credits and other programs — and that can show world leaders the U.S. is making good on its climate goals.
Doesn't sound encouraging.The expanded child tax credit that was enacted as part of this spring's coronavirus relief package has been credited with dropping child poverty rates. Democrats view it as a key policy achievement. Biden had hoped to extend it for four more years. Democrats say now the plan is to extend the tax credit for just one year.
[...]
Paid family leave has also been scaled back in this smaller bill. During a CNN Town Hall in Baltimore Thursday evening, Biden said "it is down to four weeks." He had originally proposed 12 weeks.
[...]
Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., proposed to expand Medicare to cover vision, hearing and dental procedures. The costs for all three could prove too expensive in this smaller package. Biden said it would be a "reach" to get all three, but progressives say the president is committed to including something in the final bill. They also say Medicaid coverage is also expected to be expanded, but gave few details.
[...]
The Democrats' original bill included a plan for two years of free community college, but it is one item that both progressives and moderates said was not going to make it in a final deal.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
Thursday, October 21, 2021
Kyrsten not getting any love
Unfazed.Five veterans tapped to advise Senator Kyrsten Sinema, an Arizona Democrat, resigned from their posts on Thursday, publicly accusing her of “hanging your constituents out to dry” in the latest sign of growing hostility toward a centrist who has emerged as a key holdout on President Biden’s agenda.
[...]
“You have become one of the principal obstacles to progress, answering to big donors rather than your own people,” the veterans wrote in a letter that is to be featured in a new advertisement by Common Defense, a progressive veterans’ activist group that has targeted Ms. Sinema.
[...]
The resignations add to a crescendo of anger and pressure that Ms. Sinema is facing from erstwhile allies who say they are perplexed by her recent tactics.
[...]
Ms. Sinema’s stances have earned her a backlash from onetime supporters in a politically competitive state that is roughly split among Republicans, Democrats and independents.
The veterans who are making a public divorce from her on Thursday have sat on Ms. Sinema’s advisory council since 2019, as part of a group of 20 she selected as her office’s liaison to the Arizona service member community.
[...]
“While it is unfortunate that apparent disagreement on separate policy issues has led to this decision,” she said, “I thank them for their service and will continue working every day to deliver for Arizona’s veterans who have sacrificed so much to keep us safe and secure.”
NYT
Sinema seems to go by the old saying that there is no such thing as bad publicity.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
More like Travis Twit
Who does that punish more than his fans? Not to mention his bank account.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
Finally, a safe space for snowflakes
Where they can feed each other's egos, fears, and delusions.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
They'll be called "truths" instead of "tweets" and most of them will undoubtedly be lies.Former United States President Donald Trump has announced the launch of his own social media platform, nine months after being expelled from all major sites for his role in allegedly inciting violence at the US Capitol following his election defeat last year.
In a statement on Wednesday, Trump said the launch of Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) and its “TRUTH Social” app is meant to remedy his suspensions from sites such as Facebook and Twitter in the wake of the January 6 storming of the Capitol by his supporters as legislators met to certify the victory of the Republican’s Democratic rival, incumbent President Joe Biden.
“We live in a world where the Taliban has a huge presence on Twitter, yet your favorite American President has been silenced. This is unacceptable,” Trump said in the written statement included in a news release.
“I am excited to send out my first TRUTH on TRUTH Social very soon. TMTG was founded with a mission to give a voice to all. I’m excited to soon begin sharing my thoughts on TRUTH Social and to fight back against Big Tech,” he said.
alJazeera
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
Republicans against democract
Because they can no longer win in a democratic country.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
And yet, they can't seem to do anything about it.Senate Democrats' most forceful and perhaps last push for major voting rights legislation this year was blocked by a Republican filibuster on Wednesday afternoon.
The procedural vote to move forward with the Freedom to Vote Act failed despite Democrats' effort to craft a compromise bill led in part by Sen. Joe Manchin. The West Virginia Democrat had hoped to get enough GOP votes to overcome a filibuster, but in the end no Republicans voted to advance the legislation.
Democrats say federal voting legislation is needed to counteract a wave of new restrictions from Republican-controlled state legislatures across the country.
NPR
And it should be stark for them if they can't do anything. The unfortunate part is that it will be stark for the country.Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said a vote on the narrower John Lewis bill, meant to restore the Voting Rights Act, will come to the floor as soon as next week.
[...]
Parts of the House-passed bill, called the For the People Act, were scaled back to win over Manchin's support, as well as some Republicans. Manchin played a key role in courting Republican support for the compromise bill in recent weeks.
But Republicans didn't budge.
[...]
The failed procedural vote on Wednesday is likely to thrust lawmakers into another high-profile fight over whether to change Senate rules to abolish the legislative filibuster, or to carve out an exception for voting rights legislation. But some Democratic senators, including Manchin, have rejected calls to change the filibuster.The activists have been a regular presence on Pennsylvania Avenue, putting visible pressure on the White House. Most acknowledged that the voting rights legislation had little chance of passage without filibuster changes.
"I think what Joe Biden understands is the filibuster is not written into the Constitution. It is tradition. And tradition evolves and changes," said Joseph Geevarghese, the executive director of Our Revolution, a group aligned with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent. Geevarghese said that if Congress can't find a way to pass voting rights, the consequences could be stark for Democrats.
Like tits on a boar. Useless. As long as people are prevented from voting at all and gerrymandering continues apace, encouraging democrats to vote is pointless.In March, Biden signed an executive order promoting voting rights, calling on federal agencies to develop their own plans to encourage voter registration and participation.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
Welcome Barbados to the league of sovereign nations
With a female president, no less.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.Barbados has elected its first president with just weeks to go until the Caribbean island becomes a republic and ceases to recognise Queen Elizabeth as its head of state.
The island’s governor-general, Dame Sandra Mason, was elected almost unanimously by the former British colony’s parliament on Wednesday, with only one member declining to vote.
Mason, a 72-year-old judge and former ambassador, will be sworn in on 30 November, the 55th anniversary of her country’s independence from Britain in 1966.
[...]
Barbados announced its decision to part company with the monarchy in September 2020 amid an intensifying global debate on the malign legacy of colonialism and racial injustice.
Speaking at the time, Mason argued that the time had come for Barbados “to fully leave our colonial past behind”.
[...]
Barbados is not the first Caribbean country to forsake the Queen. Guyana did so in 1970, four years after gaining independence from Britain, and was followed by Trinidad and Tobago in 1976 and, two years later, Dominica. Barbados may also not be the last. Its decision to become a republic has amplified a long-running debate in Jamaica over whether it should also turn away from the monarchy.
Guardian
Tuesday, October 19, 2021
Monday, October 18, 2021
Covid still killing
I don't remember hearing he had Covid.
Powell should pay in hell for his sins of the Iraq invasion.
Well, that's not encouraging. And it's not going to help convince anti-Covid-vax-ers to get vaccinated.Colin Powell, the former US secretary of state who played a pivotal role in attempting to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq, has died from complications from Covid-19 aged 84, it was announced on Monday.
[...]
He was the face of the Bush administration’s aggressive attempt to get the world community to back the invasion, based on false claims of Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction.
[...]
Powell, a retired four-star general who served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the early 1990s, had been treated for Covid at Walter Reed national medical center in Bethesda, Maryland. He was fully vaccinated against coronavirus.
Guardian
The insurrectionists at least believed their lie. Powell didn't believe the lie about WMD, but he supported it all the same.In 2008, despite party rivalries, he endorsed Barack Obama for president. When Donald Trump launched his bid for the White House, Powell became one of his leading critics.
He voted against Trump in both 2016 and 2020 and was scathing about leading Republicans who remained silent or actively embraced Trump’s lies. His excoriating criticism of Trump continued until months before he died – in January he said he was so disgusted by the insurrection of Trump supporters at the US Capitol that he no longer considered himself to be a Republican.
UPDATE:
UPDATE:
Powell resigned from the Bush administration in 2004 and never really owned up to what he had done. He recognized that his U.N. speech was inaccurate and described it, in an interview with celebrity journalist Barbara Walters, as “painful” and a “blot” on his career. Those comments, not long after he left office, were pretty much as far as he would ever go in terms of introspection or criticism. He was unable to admit the truth that his chief of staff Lawrence Wilkerson now acknowledges. “I participated in a hoax on the American people, the international community, and the United Nations Security Council,” Wilkerson has said.
[...]
“At the personal level, Colin Powell was a nice man,” [ journalist Marc Lamont] Hill wrote. “He was also a trailblazer. But he was also a military leader and key strategist of an empire that killed countless people and undermined the sovereignty of multiple nations. In our memorials, we must be honest about all of this.”
The Intercept
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