Friday Reads: Every Day People
Posted: April 2, 2021 Filed under: Biden’s First 100 Days, Black Lives Matter 23 Comments
Portrait Of Alice Neel by Fred W. McDarrah
Good Day Sky Dancers!
I feel like one of those cartoons with the spinning heads as news leaps from continued lies, conspiracy theories and freakshows from the previous guy and his cronies to the headlines coming out of the first 100 days of Status Quo Joe’ sudden leap into the headlines as the next FDR or LBJ and then to the absolute horrific tales coming out the Derik Chauvin Trial. It’s like the psyche of America is on full monte, naked display.
So, yesterday I saw this Washington Post article on the Artist Alice Neel and a notice of a retrospective of her work at the Metropolitan Art Museum in NYC. Some of her delightful portraits fill the white space today. I found a lot of them a this link at the NYT under a the headline “Alice Neel’s Love of Harlem and the Neighbors She Painted There” You may also find more of her work here “The Life & Works of Alice Neel. Delve deep into the mind of the American artist, whose body of work demonstrates the intertwining of art and life, capturing what the eyes see and what the heart feels.”
‘Ginny and Elizabeth’, 1975,
While the Trump whack-a-dos are obsessing on Vaccine Passports and mumbling about the mark of some beast or another we’ll just take a look at Susan B. Glasser’s thoughts on Biden as the next LBJ or FDR at The New Yorker. The headline is clickbait worthy but the lede is what is real. “Is Biden Really the Second Coming of F.D.R. and L.B.J.? Proposing historic legislation is not transformative; passing it is.” Well, the article was posted yesterday so maybe it was a little bit of April Foolery? Read it and realize the first hundred days do not a presidential legacy make. But, of course we knew that.
As for Biden, what I’m struck by is not so much the quite possibly overheated F.D.R. and L.B.J. comparisons as the radically different political circumstances that Biden faces in getting Congress to enact his sweeping big-government proposals. Yes, Trump was the first Republican incumbent seeking reëlection to see his party lose the White House, Senate, and House since Roosevelt defeated Herbert Hoover, in 1932. But almost everything else about the politics of today appears to be radically different for the new Biden Administration than it was for Roosevelt, from the nature and scale of the economic problems that he faces—the Great Depression was not just worse than our current predicament but much worse—to the realities of governing. The biggest difference is in Washington, where Biden will be trying to push through his agenda with the votes of only fifty senators and a House margin of only three votes. In 1933, by contrast, F.D.R. was working with a Congress in which Democrats outnumbered Republicans in the House three to one; in the Senate, they had a fifty-nine-vote majority. L.B.J.’s hand was even stronger; after his landslide election victory, in 1964, Democrats controlled sixty-eight seats in the Senate and picked up an additional thirty-six seats in the House, giving them two hundred and ninety-five seats and a sizable majority.
What a contrast with today. The truth, which the savvy hands in the Biden White House know all too well, is that the enemy gets a vote, as the military saying goes. In this case, it will get a lot of votes, because there is just no getting around the reality of near-parity between the parties in Congress. As the bills are hashed out on the Hill over the coming months, every faction of even one or two or three members will get a say, knowing that an entire bill could go down with just their votes. The lobbying that has already begun suggests a tough road ahead.
Alice Neel’s 1950 portrait of the playwright Alice Childress. Credit: Estate of Alice Neel, David Zwirner, New York/London; Collection of Art Berliner
Meanwhile, the prosecution and search for the Trumpist Insurrectionists continues. This is one more reminder of why the previous guy is still a clear and present danger. I was glad to read that more people threatened by the Insurrection Riots–now to include Capitol Police as well as Congress Critters–are suing the living daylights out of him.
This is from BuzzFeed News‘ Zoe Tillman: ‘The Lawsuits Against Donald Trump Are Stacking Up Over “Stop The Steal”‘
Lawsuits seeking to hold former president Donald Trump personally — and financially — responsible for the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6 are stacking up.
This week, two US Capitol Police officers who said they were on the front lines at the Capitol on Jan. 6 sued Trump, arguing that he was liable for inciting the violence and for the physical and emotional injuries they sustained during clashes with rioters.
There are already two lawsuits filed by Democratic members of Congress — Reps. Bennie Thompson and Eric Swalwell — that accuse Trump and his allies of conspiring to interfere with their official duties by pushing the false claims of voter fraud that underpinned the Capitol insurrection. A fourth case, filed a few weeks before the January riot, accuses Trump and Republicans of violating federal civil rights law by focusing postelection challenges and fraud falsehoods on areas with large Black populations.
Trump has denied that he was responsible for inciting the violence of Jan. 6, and his defense against these cases is likely to feature an argument that his promotion of the “Stop the Steal” campaign — the lie that President Joe Biden’s win was illegitimate and that there was widespread fraud — was political speech protected by the First Amendment. His lawyers haven’t filed responses yet to the post–Jan. 6 cases, but they’ve already raised a First Amendment defense in the postelection civil rights case filed on behalf of Black voters.
There’s more potential legal fallout from “Stop the Steal” looming over Trump. Earlier this week, a lawyer for Dominion Voting Systems told Axios that the election tech company hadn’t ruled out suing Trump or anyone else who promoted false claims that Dominion and its products were involved in an election fraud scheme. Dominion and another voting systems company, Smartmatic, have already filed billion-dollar lawsuits against Trump ally Rudy Giuliani, former Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell, and Fox News.
Alice Neel’s 1966 painting of a South Asian woman, her mauve sari covered with periwinkle diamonds, is among two dozen portraits in the show “Alice Neel, Uptown” at David Zwirner gallery.
Let’s hope all the injured parties can drain them all dry! The Spawn of Trump are fairing no better. Ivanka Trump’s project to globally aid women entreprenuers shows incredible signs of mismanagement. This is reported by Glenn Thrush writing for the NYT. “A global aid program championed by Ivanka Trump has serious problems, a report finds.” Pretty bad when a bored and dim socialite can’t even make a decent run at a charity but then, they all can’t seem to get the idea that a charity isn’t there to benefit them somehow. That’s sort’ve a killer misperception.
One of Ivanka Trump’s top initiatives — a legislative overhaul of programs assisting small businesses run by women around the world — was so haphazardly managed by a federal agency that an independent watchdog was unable to determine whether it actually worked.
In a report released on Thursday, the Government Accountability Office found that programs funded through the Women’s Entrepreneurship and Economic Empowerment Act, which Ms. Trump, the eldest daughter of former President Donald J. Trump, helped usher through Congress in late 2018, were deeply flawed and hampered by poor oversight.
Officials at the U.S. Agency for International Development, which oversaw $265 million per year in spending on the initiative and an associated antipoverty program, never worked out “an explicit definition” of who was eligible to receive millions in aid, the report found.
The aid agency was also unable to determine the percentage of funding going to “the very poor and enterprises owned, managed and controlled by women,” the authors concluded after a 14-month audit, which covered actions taken during both the Obama and Trump administrations.
The G.A.O. recommended the U.S. Agency for International Development make six major changes to overhaul the programs. The agency’s leaders, who were appointed by the Biden administration, said they planned to implement them.
Ah, let me put a theme song to the paintings and what I want to sing every time I turn on TV and read about another Hate Crime. I’m trying to work myself up to looking at the attempt to get Justice for George Floyd and to stop thinking about all those women who died in the spa shooting so maybe Sly will cheer me up and I can sing ‘
‘We all the same no matter what we do’ .
Neel’s portrait of Mercedes Arroyo, from 1952.Credit…Estate of Alice Neel, David Zwirner, New York/London; Daryl and Steven Roth
‘and scooby dooby dooby …’
So, today the prosecution put more expert witnesses which are a hell of a lot easier to watch than the seriously emotionally damaged witnesses to Chauvin’s knew on George Floyd. Joy Reid twitted this interesting fact about him:
The first officer who testified today in the Chauvin trial was interesting — the fact that he went through the community policing system under Obama’s 21st century policing program means he just has a different perspective from other officers. We need more of that.
This was the conclusion at WAPO just minutes ago: “Senior officer rejects Chauvin’s ‘totally unnecessary’ use of force against George Floyd”. That pretty much backs up everything the witnesses up to date have said including the 9 year old.
An emotional week of testimony in the trial of Derek Chauvin concluded Friday with Lt. Richard Zimmerman, the most senior officer in the Minneapolis Police Department, rejecting the former officer’s use of force against George Floyd, calling it “uncalled for” and “totally unnecessary.” Zimmerman testified that once someone is handcuffed, “they are not a threat to you at that point” and the amount of force should be immediately reduced. “If your knee is on a person’s neck, that could kill him,” he testified.
Eric Nelson, Chauvin’s attorney, argued Friday that police can use “improvisation” for “whatever force is reasonable and necessary.”
The Trial is on recess until Monday Morning so you have plenty of time to watch/hear the gut wrenching testimony of the witnesses as well as First Responders who arrived at the scene too late to be of use.
Neel’s drawing of Georgie Arce, from 1955. Credit: Estate of Alice Neel, David Zwirner, New York/London; Private Collection
I have to pace myself even when it’s just post coverage by the media. It’s so supremely shocking that even repeats of the film or watching witnesses cry on the stand as they try to recount it just makes me put my head in my pillow to scream.
‘Ooh sha sha
We got to live together
I am no better and neither are you
We’re all the same whatever we do
You love me you hate me
You know me and then
You can’t figure out the bag I’m in
I am everyday people’
And just so you know we’re still not out of the woods yet …
and the suspect is in custody.
and then there’s this:
https://twitter.com/bfishbfish/status/1378009252258844673
And with that I bid you to please have a happy and sunny weekend. Please be safe! We want to hear from you for a very long time!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Thursday Reads: Matt Gaetz’s Wild and Crazy Scandal
Posted: April 1, 2021 Filed under: Afternoon Reads, just because, U.S. Politics | Tags: David McGee, DOJ, Don Gaetz, FBI, Fox News, iran, Joel Greenberg, Matt Gaetz, Robert Levinson, sex trafficking, Tucker Carlson 8 Comments
Saad Yagan, 2017
Good Afternoon!!
What on Earth is going on with Matt Gaetz? The story just keeps growing stranger by the day. It all began with this New York Times story published on Tuesday: Matt Gaetz Is Said to Face Justice Dept. Inquiry Over Sex With an Underage Girl.
Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida and a close ally of former President Donald J. Trump, is being investigated by the Justice Department over whether he had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old and paid for her to travel with him, according to three people briefed on the matter.
Investigators are examining whether Mr. Gaetz violated federal sex trafficking laws, the people said. A variety of federal statutes make it illegal to induce someone under 18 to travel over state lines to engage in sex in exchange for money or something of value. The Justice Department regularly prosecutes such cases, and offenders often receive severe sentences.
It was not clear how Mr. Gaetz met the girl, believed to be 17 at the time of encounters about two years ago that investigators are scrutinizing, according to two of the people.
The investigation was opened in the final months of the Trump administration under Attorney General William P. Barr, the two people said. Given Mr. Gaetz’s national profile, senior Justice Department officials in Washington — including some appointed by Mr. Trump — were notified of the investigation, the people said.
Then Gaetz appeared on Tucker Carlson’s show on Fox and made everything worse for himself.
Aaron Rupar at Vox: Matt Gaetz’s disastrous Tucker Carlson interview, explained.
Hours after the New York Times broke the news that Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) is under federal investigation for alleged sex trafficking, he was given a platform by Fox News host Tucker Carlson to tell his side of the story. But Gaetz ended up botching the softball interview so thoroughly that Carlson ended up telling his millions of viewers it was “one of the weirdest interviews I’ve ever conducted.”
Pablo Picasso, 1939
At various points during the interview, Gaetz — who denies the allegations — volunteered the existence of criminal allegations against him that aren’t yet part of the public record, brought up sexual misconduct allegations against Carlson that most of his viewers probably weren’t aware of, and went out of his way to involve Carlson in stories about his personal life.
“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’ll remember her — 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 could face trouble,” Gaetz said. “So I do believe there are people at the Department of Justice that are trying to smear me. Providing for flights and hotel rooms for people that you’re dating who are of legal age is not a crime.”
It sounds like he’s admitting he paid for travel and hotel rooms for a person he was dating, doesn’t it?
…more importantly than the bizarreness of the interview is the fact that Gaetz didn’t do a very convincing job trying to refute the very serious criminal allegations underpinning the federal investigation. His defense basically amounts to claims that he’s the victim of a vast conspiracy….
During the interview with Carlson, Gaetz denied improper conduct, but he did so in a very limited and specific way, using language that raised more questions than it answered.
Butterflies and Poppies, Vincent Van Gogh
“The New York Times is running a story that I have traveled with a 17-year-old woman, and that is verifiably false; people can look at my travel records and see that that is not the case,” Gaetz said — even though a 17-year-old is not a “woman,” the allegations go beyond mere “traveling,” and it’s unclear how “travel records” could disprove any of them.
Gaetz went on to allege that word of the investigation was leaked as part of an extortion plot, saying “what is happening is an extortion of me and my family involving a former Department of Justice official” who demanded $25 million in exchange for making the sex trafficking allegations go away.
But during an MSNBC interview a short time later, one of the Times reporters bylined on the Gaetz story, Katie Benner, debunked one of Gaetz’s central claims, saying unequivocally that the former official Gaetz accused by name of being part of an extortion plot isn’t even involved in the investigation.
I’m still very confused.
Washington Post fact checker Salvador Rizzo explains why travel records could not prove the allegations against Gaetz are false. Basically, these records aren’t available to the public.
Here’s the bottom line: House members’ personal travel and expenses are not subject to disclosure, so there would be no public records to check regarding Gaetz’s private life.“If this was just personal travel, and he wasn’t using campaign or official funds, there’s no disclosure,” said Jordan Libowitz, communications director for the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
Airline flight manifests and personal credit card or bank statements would chart who went where with whom at what times and at whose expense, but those sensitive records are not public. Only law enforcement investigators could look through them by getting subpoenas.
Philip Bump at The Washington Post: The Matt Gaetz allegation, explained.
“The Justice Department is investigating Rep. Matt Gaetz — a Florida Republican considered a close political ally of former president Donald Trump — over an alleged sexual relationship with an underage girl,” The Washington Post’s Matt Zapotosky and Devlin Barrett explain. That relationship allegedly included paying for the girl to travel, potentially across state lines, adding the complexity of potential federal charges related to sex trafficking, according to the Times. Both the Post and Times stories are constrained for fairly obvious reasons, including the limits of available information and the need to accurately convey the potential risk Gaetz faces.
Landscape with Butterflies, 1956, by Salvador Dali
The investigation apparently spun out of another sex-trafficking probe in Florida. That one focused on a former county official named Joel Greenberg, who was charged in the summer with a number of federal offenses, including sex trafficking of a minor.
“According to an indictment in the case, Greenberg abused his access to a statewide database, using it to look up the personal information of people with whom he was in ‘sugar daddy’ relationships, including the minor, and to help produce fake identification documents to ‘facilitate his efforts to engage in commercial sex acts,’ ” Zapotosky and Barrett report. “He was also accused of seeking to undermine a political opponent by surfacing fabricated evidence of racism and misconduct.”
It’s worth noting that questions about Gaetz’s relationships have emerged in the past. A Mother Jones article from 2019 documents concerns raised by a former member of Gaetz’s staff about a 21-year-old he was then dating and who was apparently posting photos of the two of them on Instagram alongside other photos showing not-conservative-politician-friendly activities.
There’s more explanation and confusion at the link. What is clear is that there are two different investigations that Gaetz is trying to combine in his defense. Other than that, I’m still confused.
Gaetz’s father chimed in at Politico yesterday: Matt Gaetz’s dad says he wore a wire for FBI probe into DOJ extortion claims.
Rep. Matt Gaetz’s father, Don, a former Florida Senate president, said he is working with the FBI, including wearing a wire on more than one occasion as part of an investigation into an alleged extortion plot that the pair said was organized by former federal prosecutor David McGee.
Herons and Lilies, 1934, by Frank W. Benson
“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 said in an interview late Tuesday, without specifying what information he was referring to.
McGee, who is now in private practice with a Pensacola, Fla.-based law firm, did not respond to a POLITICO request seeking comment, but told other media outlets there is no truth to the alleged extortion plot.
Don Gaetz said in the interview he wore a wire during a meeting earlier this month with McGee and said he was set to meet Wednesday with Stephen Alford, a local developer who he said is also part of the alleged extortion scheme. During that meeting, Don Gaetz said, he was again set to wear a wire and try to get Alford to talk about payments he allegedly was to make to McGee, but the meeting fell apart when news broke that his son was being investigated by the Justice Department. Alford did not respond to text messages seeking comment.
In separate interviews, Don and Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) acknowledged a Justice Department probe involving the younger Gaetz, 38, into whether he had improper involvement with a 17-year-old girl. The Gaetzes say they are the target of an extortion plot seeking money to keep the DOJ investigation quiet.
Today The Washington Post reported that the scandal involves Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent who went missing in Iran and is believed to be dead. Here’s a summary at The Week: The Matt Gaetz case now involves a missing FBI agent last seen in Iran.
When Rep. Matt Gaetz’s (R-Fla.) father received a message that referred to a Justice Department investigation into his son and asked for help funding the search for Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent who went missing in Iran 14 years ago, he thought the request was suspicious and went to the FBI, people familiar with the matter told The Washington Post on Wednesday.
On Tuesday night, The New York Times reported that in the waning months of the Trump administration, the DOJ launched an investigation into whether Gaetz had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl and paid for her to travel with him out of state. Gaetz, who denied any wrongdoing and has not been charged with any crimes, released a statement saying his family had been targeted by extortionists, and his father wore a wire at the insistence of the FBI.
Boy with butterfly net, by Henri Mattisse, 1907
People familiar with the matter told the Post that Gaetz’s wealthy father, Don Gaetz, received a text message and document from two men who said if he gave them money to help with the search for Levinson, Matt Gaetz would be seen as a hero and his legal troubles would likely go away. Levinson disappeared from Iran’s Kish Island in 2007 while trying to get information on the country’s nuclear program, and was last seen alive in a 2010 hostage video. His family has said the U.S. government told them they believe Levinson is dead.
When Don Gaetz received these messages, the DOJ investigation into his son was not known publicly. It isn’t clear how the men learned about the investigation, and they do not appear to have any direct connection with the investigation. People with knowledge of the matter told the Post it will be hard to prove this was an extortion attempt because the men did not threaten to expose Gaetz’s DOJ investigation if the family did not give them money.
Matt Gaetz appeared on Fox News Tuesday night and accused a lawyer named David McGee of being involved in this effort. McGee has represented the Levinson family for years, and on Tuesday night he said Don Gaetz called him and they had a “pleasant conversation” about “the trouble his son was in.” McGee denied being involved in any extortion attempt, and his law firm on Wednesday called the allegation “false and defamatory.” Catherine Garcia
One more Gaetz story from ABC News: In investigation of Rep. Gaetz’s alleged sexual relationship with minor, feds looking beyond Florida, sources say.
Sources told ABC News the investigation has been going on for months and began during the Trump administration. Former Attorney General Bill Barr was briefed on the investigation’s progress several times, the sources said.
One source told ABC News that federal authorities have already interviewed multiple witnesses as part of their probe.
Morning Bird Dance, Edvard Munch
Gaetz has reportedly told confidants he is considering retiring from Congress and possibly joining the right-wing media outlet Newsmax, according to an Axios report earlier Tuesday.
Yet within the last several weeks Gaetz started reaching out to prominent attorneys, according to one source. The source said that one of the attorneys Gaetz asked to represent him was Washington attorney Bill Burck, who represented Steve Bannon, Reince Priebus and Don McGahn during the Mueller probe. Burck turned down the case, according to a person familiar with the decision.
So this story keeps getting curiouser and curiouser. One interesting point is that apparently Gaetz is very unpopular with Republicans and they are rooting for him to go down in flames. A few more links to check out:
Jeff Stein at Spy Talk: Gaetz ‘Extortion’ Figure’s Levinson Obsession.
The Daily Beast: The Creepy, Disturbing Case That Ensnared Matt Gaetz.
Ben Jacobs at New York Magazine: Matt Gaetz Gets a Scandal As Wild As Him.
Raw Story: Here are 7 new bombshell details from the complex and unraveling Matt Gaetz investigation story.
The Daily Beast: Republicans Have Been Waiting for a Matt Gaetz Scandal to Break.
The Hill: Fox has no interest in hiring Matt Gaetz.
I’ll be keeping an eye on this story, because it’s still so confusing to me. I guess we’ll be learning more soon. So what’s on your mind today? As always, this is an open thread.
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