Monday Reads: Supreme Court Blues
Posted: May 17, 2021 Filed under: Afternoon Reads | Tags: abortion rights 12 Comments
The Absinthe Drinker (1901), Pablo Picasso
Good Morning Sky Dancers!
Losing the Supreme court to radical religionists is the fruit of the evil Republican tree of base pandering. I can’t help but think we may see the demise of the NRA and could possibly see movement on laws ridding the system of dark money and the influence of billionaires with agendas. However, the fact we have so many religious extremists on the court now may mean fights long fought and won will be taken to the streets again.
The system of court appointments was radically played by Mitch McConnell and no amount of precedent is going deter these radicals he placed on the court. The Doctrine of stare decisis is one of the most traditionally conservative ideals in our system. The fact it was ignored this term and will likely be ignored next term should make Senator Collins feel like Benedict Arnold.
Mississipi is nearly last in everything good and first in everything bad including infant mortality. So, why not increase that infant mortality rate a lot by restricting abortions after 15 weeks when a lot could still go very wrong with a pregnancy? Also, medical science does not consider a beating heart to be a sign of sentient life. Ask any 6th grader who can get dead frog’s heart to beat with a few hits of that crazy new modern invention electricity!
Pablo Picasso – The Sleepy Drinker, 1902
This is from Robert Barnes writing for The Washington Post: “Supreme Court to review Mississippi abortion law that advocates see as a path to diminish Roe v. Wade.”
The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will review a restrictive Mississippi abortion law that opponents of the procedure say provides a clear path to diminish Roe v. Wade’s establishment of the right of women to choose an abortion.
Abortion opponents for months have urged the court’s conservatives to seize the chance to reexamine the 1973 precedent. Mississippi is one among many Republican-led states that have passed restrictions that conflict with the court’s precedents protecting a woman’s right to choose before fetal viability.
In accepting the case, the court said it would examine whether “all pre-viability prohibitions on elective abortions are unconstitutional.” That has been a key component of the court’s jurisprudence.
The Mississippi law would ban almost all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, with narrow exceptions for medical emergencies or fetal abnormalities. It has not gone into effect because a district federal judge and a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit said that it could not be squared with decades of Supreme Court precedents.
“In an unbroken line dating to Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court’s abortion cases have established (and affirmed, and reaffirmed) a woman’s right to choose an abortion before viability,” Judge Patrick Higginbotham wrote for the appeals court. “States may regulate abortion procedures before viability so long as they do not impose an undue burden on the woman’s right but they may not ban abortions.”
The court has now accepted for the term that begins in October two issues dear to conservatives: gun rights and the ability of states to restrict abortion. It is what they had hoped for once the court reached a 6-to-3 conservative majority with the addition of Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a conservative nominated by President Donald Trump.
Get ready for the reality of Handmaid’s Tale.
The Vox tweet above links to an article written by Ian Millhiser. I cringe reading the words “biggest threat” and realize they’ve used a woman to bring us down.
The Supreme Court announced on Monday that it will hear Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a challenge to a Mississippi law that prohibits nearly all abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy. That means that Dobbs will be the first abortion case to be fully briefed and argued before the Supreme Court since Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation last October.
Barrett is an outspoken opponent of abortion, and she joined a Court that almost certainly already had five votes to roll back abortion rights before her confirmation gave Republicans a 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court.
Last June, four justices voted to uphold a Louisiana anti-abortion law that was virtually identical to a Texas law that the Supreme Court struck down in 2016. Conservative Chief Justice John Roberts cast a surprising vote in that June case, June Medical Services v. Russo, to strike down Louisiana’s law. But Roberts’s opinion emphasized that he disagreed with many of the Court’s seminal abortion rights decisions, and that he only voted the way he did in June Medical out of respect for the principle that the Court should not simply ignore a ruling that it handed down just a few years earlier.
With Barrett on the Court, the four dissenters in June Medical no longer need Roberts’s vote to make significant incursions on reproductive freedom. And the legal issue in Dobbs is sufficiently distinct from the one in June Medical that Roberts is unlikely to vote with his liberal colleagues again on those grounds.
The legal issue in Dobbs is straightforward. A2018Mississippi law prohibits all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, “except in a medical emergency or in the case of a severe fetal abnormality.” Notably, this law applies even before thefetus is viable — meaning that it is capable of surviving outside the uterus. But, as the Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed, “a State may not prohibit any woman from making the ultimate decision to terminate her pregnancy before viability.”
Paul Cézanne – Still Life with Skull, 1895-1900
I’m finally linking to The Bulwark which is something I thought I’d never do. Politics make strange bedfellows indeed. “The GOP’s Telltale Signs of Authoritarianism.”
Having been established as the GOP’s undisputed ruler, Trump is encountering some of the headaches and tensions common to all autocrats. The first and most obvious is the lack of a clear succession principle. In 2020, the party proudly defined itself as an organization devoted to Trump, forgoing the creation of a party platform beyond ‘We ❤ Trump.’ No wonder other notables who would seem to have their own independent bases of support, like Nikki Haley and Sen. Mitch McConnell, can’t bring themselves to quit him, and dissidents like Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger face de facto excommunication. How could any of them make a claim to become the new leader of the party if the party only exists to serve the current leader? Because actively opposing Trump is impossible, Republicans with presidential ambitions have no choice but to ingratiate themselves with him in the hope of gaining an advantageous position in the squabble for his endorsement should he choose not to run.
Another issue common to both authoritarian regimes and the Trump-era Republican party is the paucity of trustworthy, honest information. Most autocrats struggle to figure out who is telling them the truth and who is a yes-man—the incentives of lower-level officials to inflate their success to their superiors are infamous. Trump embraces the problem, eschewing anyone who dares to give him bad news.
And then, of course, there’s the brain drain. One of the problems of strangling and restricting a society for political expediency is that there are always other options. The people with the most human capital—extraordinary abilities, intelligence, skills, etc.—are the most likely to defect. The Soviet Union and its allies leaked talent at an extraordinary rate. Judging by how many former Republican luminaries have publicly broken with Trump, the Republican party, or both, its brain drain could be even quicker.
The Republican party has shed many of its legal, economic, foreign policy, and political experts—the very people who enabled it to govern. Its new leading legal light is Rudy Giuliani. Its foreign policy guru is . . . maybe Sen. Rand Paul? (Sorry, Mike Pompeo.) Its most accomplished economist is Larry Kudlow.
The Trumpist “intellectual” movement is a bit like the Soviets’ ersatz space shuttle—it never really got off the ground.
“Le Viaduct de L’Estaque,”, George Brach, 1908
Republicans are blinding by superstitions and lies. The Guardian caught one congress critter in a doozy of a lie. “Photo emerges of Republican barricading chamber doors during US Capitol attack after he compared rioters to ‘tourists’. ‘Do Georgians always barricade doors against normal, everyday tourists?’ one critic asked.”
A photo has emerged of Andrew Clyde, the Republican congressman who claimed “there was no insurrection” and compared US Capitol rioters to “tourists”, barricading the House chamber during the attack.
“The Rep. Clyde news reminded me of this,” Roll Call photographer Tom Williams tweeted this week, and included a picture of the Georgia congressman in a group of eight men pushing a piece of furniture against doors to the chamber.
Speaking on Wednesday to the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Clyde downplayed the actions of the pro-Trump mob who stormed the Capitol on 6 January as “a normal tourist visit”. The violent attack left five dead including one police officer.
“As one of the members who stayed in the Capitol, and on the House floor, who with other Republican colleagues helped barricade the door until almost 3pm from the mob who tried to enter, I can tell you the House floor was never breached and it was not an insurrection,” Mr Clyde told the committee.
“It was not an insurrection, and we cannot call it that and be truthful.”
Mr Clyde’s remarks were lambasted by lawmakers and law enforcement experts. Fred Wellman, the executive director of the Lincoln Project and a former commanding officer of US forces in Iraq, wrote: “How craven is Rep. Clyde to say there was no insurrection?”
“He helped barricade the doors from the ‘tourists.’ They know lying to the MAGA mob equals money. That’s all that matters.”
Also issuing a retort, House speaker Nancy Pelosi referred to death threats against her and former vice president Mike Pence, during a press conference on Wednesday.
It’s really difficult to keep up with all the lies and even more difficult to understand the people that believe them. Republicanism and Religion are helluva drugs to paraphrase Rick James. Well, that’s enough of shining light on the politically insane. I’m off to use Dial soap to get rid of the stupid cooties.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Lazy Caturday Reads
Posted: May 15, 2021 Filed under: morning reads | Tags: Donald Trump, January 6 commission, Joel Greenberg, Liz Cheney, Matt Gaetz, Megan Zalonka, Trump Hotel DC 11 Comments
Intellectual Cat, Olena Kamenetska-Ostapchuk
Good Morning!!
I hope you are all having a nice weekend. It’s finally starting to feel more like Spring here in Greater Boston after weeks of unseasonably cool weather. It’s bright and sunny and in the 70s today and it looks like the good weather will continue into next week. We might even see some 80-degree days midweek.
It looks like we might be getting closer to a comeuppance for Trump and his merry band of conspiracy nuts. I don’t want to get my hopes up too much, but Democrats in the House have finally decided to try to set up an independent commission to investigate the January 6 insurrection.
The Washington Post: House members announce bipartisan deal for Jan. 6 commission.
Democrats also proposed a bill to increase security in the Capitol.
The bill puts over a half-billion dollars toward hardening the Capitol and congressional office buildings with movable fences, door and window reinforcements, and additional security cameras and checkpoints. It also dedicates $21.5 million to stepping up security details for members facing threats, whether in Washington, their home districts or traveling between the two — and $18 million to better train and equip the U.S. Capitol Police to respond to riot situations.
But the largest part of the hefty spending bill — nearly $700 million — is simply to pay money owed to the Capitol Police, D.C. police, the National Guard and other federal agencies for costs they incurred in responding to the riot and its aftermath. It also dedicates more than $200 million to the federal courts to address threats to judges and to meet various other costs related to prosecuting those charged in connection with the insurrection.
Both the spending bill and the commission legislation face unique challenges as proponents seek to build enough bipartisan support to get the measures through both chambers of Congress. Thus far, no Republicans have voiced support for the Democrats’ spending bill. And although the commission proposal is bipartisan, and is likely to have enough backing to clear the House when it comes to a vote next week, it is unclear how many Republicans will support it.
Maskless Friday Reads
Posted: May 14, 2021 Filed under: just because, morning reads | Tags: face masks, Post-Pandemic Reality, Storming Mar-a-Hog-OH! 11 Comments
“The Twins, Kate and Grace Hoare” the sisters wear face coverings as they prepare for an outing with their elegant dog .John Everett Millais (1829–1896)
The Fitzwilliam Museum
Good Day Sky Dancers!
I’m off to the hospital this afternoon for a series of those “baseline” tests which basically signal that I can look forward to going downhill from whatever peak they establish. I will be wearing a mask there and on the way there and back home in my Lyft ride. It’s a different reality this month. I’m drinking my coffee reading about Louisiana teens getting their vaccinations today. The media is showing yesterday’s presser picture of the day which is basically a shot of President Biden and Vice President Harris mask-free.
Last year, masks were everywhere. This includes the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, eastern England that closed during the peak of the pandemic and masked some of its collection for view on its website. Today’s art comes from the coverage given the show by CNN in June of 2020..
I’m not sure I’m completely ready to give up my mask yet. I listened to the same conversation between Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell. I’m pretty sure I will still wear it for my trips to the corner stores. My other outings were solo dog walks so they were always maskless but with a mask in the pocket. Yesterday, Temple and I celebrated our 7th Templeversary. That’s the day I called up the Bunkie pound and said I want to adopt that dog! Today, we look forward to walks without worrying about outfits with pockets!
So, we the vaccinated, rarely need to wear masks according to the CDC. This is from David Leonhardt at the New York Times.
John Everett Millais’ “The Bridesmaid” (1851) with a decorated facemask to match her decorative dress. Credit: The Fitzwilliam Museum/FME, Cambridge
The C.D.C.’s intricate list of recommended Covid behavior has baffled many Americans and frightened others, making the guidance less helpful than it might have been.
Yesterday, the agency effectively acknowledged it had fallen behind the scientific evidence: Even though that evidence has not changed in months, the C.D.C. overhauled its guidelines. It said fully vaccinated people could stop wearing masks in most settings, including crowded indoor gatherings.
The change sends a message: Vaccination means the end of the Covid crisis, for individuals and ultimately for society.
If you’re vaccinated, you can safely get together with family and friends, mask-free. You can nuzzle your grandparents or your grandchildren. You can eat in restaurants, go to the movies and attend religious services. You can travel. If you’re vaccinated, Covid joins a long list of small risks that we have long accepted without upending our lives, like riding in a car, taking a swim or exposing ourselves to the common cold.
I’m still having a bit of reaction when even a friend I know is well vaccinated crossed the street with his dog to greet Temple and me. I knew full well he got it back a few months ago and likely before me. It was the same reaction my neighbor had to me last month when we both got fully vaccinated and met up for a neutral ground chat. She reached for her mask and said we’re okay. We’d spent most of the year having small dinners on her porch or dining room properly socially distanced with hand sanitizer and the entire routine. It’s easy to move forward along these lines.
I’m thrilled my youngest is going to see her very pregnant sister over Memorial Day. The thought of getting on planes with strangers from the feral Trumpist outback still frightens me. I had a year of knowing who was crazy and who was prudent with that mask and I’m not sure I’m ready to give that up.
“La Liseuse” (The Reader) by Belgian painter Alfred Émile Léopold Stevens in 1860, as imagined in the pandemic. Credit: The Fitzwilliam Museum/FME, Cambridge
Russell Berman–writing for The Atlantic–asks “Is This the End? The CDC’s surprising mask announcement was not just a public-health milestone.”
It had not, of course. There were, as always, plenty of caveats to the CDC’s guidance. Masks should still be worn on public transportation and in high-risk settings such as doctor’s offices, hospitals, and nursing homes. The majority of Americans remain unvaccinated and should continue to mask up. Tens of thousands are testing positive for the coronavirus every day, and hundreds are still dying from it. Cases are surging in India and other parts of the world.
So, no, the pandemic isn’t over, but the significance of the CDC’s shift was unmistakable, and the nation’s senior political leaders made sure the public didn’t miss it. Inside the Oval Office, President Joe Biden and the Republican lawmakers with whom he was meeting took off their masks, Senator Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia told reporters outside the White House. On the Senate floor, Senator Susan Collins of Maine—who earlier this week chastised Walensky over the CDC’s “conflicting” mask guidance—triumphantly waved hers in the air. “Free at last,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, previously a fastidious mask-wearer, declared at the Capitol. Conservatives have mocked Biden, who has been fully vaccinated for months, for wearing a mask even when it clearly offered no discernible health benefit, including while walking alone to and from his helicopter. So when Biden spoke later in the afternoon in the White House Rose Garden, it was notable that he wasn’t wearing one. His remarks carried an air of celebration, if not quite finality. “Today,” he said, “is a great day for America in our long battle with the coronavirus.”
“The daughters of Sir Matthew Decker,” painted by Dutch artist Jan van Meyer in 1718. Credit: The Fitzwilliam Museum/FME, Cambridge
So, I do want to make this post mostly about what seems to be a turning-the-corner moment in our history of Covid-19. I even have a friend taking his usual group of college students to Seville Spain this summer to take in the music and the opera. He’s at the Student Health Center getting his vaccine passport because that’s what the Spanish Government requires for visitors. The private universities here are requiring their students to show up on campus in the fall with proof of vaccine this fall. They intend to be open. The Louisiana University and Lousiana State University are still pandering to the backwoods goons in the Lousyana outback. So, it’s still political just as Berman states.
We get the news today that all of the Democratic Congress is vaccinated which surprises no one. (Via CNN)
“No,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said when asked if the rule mandating masks unless a member is speaking on the House floor would be modified. She then asked, “Are they all vaccinated?”The answer, among Democrats across both chambers, is a 100% vaccination rate. For Republicans, it’s a different story — with at least 44.8% of House members vaccinated and at least 92% of senators.In a follow-up to a March House-wide survey and interviews with members, CNN has confirmed that 312 of the 431 members of the House — just over 72% of the 431-member body — have now received a Covid-19 vaccination. Of that, all 219 House Democrats have reported being vaccinated. Among the Republican conference, 95 of the 212 members — 44.8% — have said they are vaccinated.One hundred and twelve Republican offices did not respond to multiple CNN inquires.
One House Republican, Rep. Tom Massie of Kentucky, said he is not vaccinated.
There’s one other thing that popped up on my radar yesterday. Trump may be prepared to order Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to protect his ass from extradition to New York for prosecution. It appears that may be evident. So, the speculation is wtf is going on here, and can Florida actually do that? From the South Florida Sun-Sentinel: “If New York indicts Florida resident Donald Trump, could DeSantis save him from extradition?”
Trump bought and renovated Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, long before he became president, and in 2019 he declared it was officially his residence after he decided he no longer wanted to call his native New York home. Born in Queens, Trump built an image of himself as a savvy Manhattan real estate mogul.
Since Jan. 20, he’s run his post-presidency from there, issuing statements and delivering occasional speeches to groups of guests in which he rails about the 2020 election. Trump continues to falsely claim the only reason President Joe Biden won is because of widespread voter fraud.
If Vance’s office secures an indictment of Trump while he’s at Mar-a-Lago, the question could land in DeSantis’ lap.
Florida statutes state that “When a demand shall be made upon the Governor of this state by the executive authority of another state for the surrender of a person so charged with crime, the Governor may call upon the Department of Legal Affairs or any prosecuting officer in this state to investigate or assist in investigating the demand, and to report to him or her the situation and circumstances of the person so demanded, and whether the person ought to be surrendered.”
To the extent DeSantis can do anything to help Trump — or appear to help Trump — it’s hard to envision DeSantis easily going along with New York and allowing extradition of the former president. Going along with extradition would infuriate Trump’s MAGA supporters — the very people DeSantis needs for his own re-election next year and any future presidential candidacy. Helping to fight it would undoubtedly earn praise from those same people.
You can read more on this from The Insider. I am beginning to think Florida is a third rate banana republic right now. It’s embarassing.As the Manhattan district attorney’s criminal investigation into former President Donald Trump enters its final stages, officials in Florida are preparing for “thorny extradition issues that could arise” from a statute in the Sunshine State, Politico Playbook first reported on Thursday.
Two officials involved in the “contingency plans” told Politico that law-enforcement personnel in Palm Beach County were looking at what to do if Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.’s investigation results in an indictment while Trump is at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
State law allows Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis — a staunch Trump ally — to step in and investigate whether a “person ought to be surrendered” if they’re indicted, Politico said.
Trump is residing at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, for the next few months.
I wonder if they’re fortifying his Florida palace like a drug cartel lord. Maybe he can get some hints from El Chapo.
Okay, that’s enough for me. I need to shower and shower, dress, and mentally prepare myself for post-pandemic wandering. Let us know how your doing with the new reality. Anyone else feeling hesitant like me?
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Thursday Reads: The Party of Lies
Posted: May 13, 2021 Filed under: morning reads | Tags: Andrew Glyde, Ashli Babbitt, Christopher Miller, Donald Trump, Garrett Miller, January 6 Capitol insurrection, Jeffrey Rosen, Liz Cheney, Michael Fanone, Paul Gosar, Republican lies 14 CommentsGood Morning!!
The Luncheon, Claude Monet
Yesterday the House Oversight Committee held a hearing on the January 6 Capitol insurrection. Democrats tried to address the facts, and Republicans attempted to sell blatant lies and fantasies about what happened that day. Fromthe Associated Press:
Republicans sought to rewrite the history of the Jan. 6 insurrection during a rancorous congressional hearing Wednesday, painting the Trump supporters who attacked the building as mostly peaceful patriots and downplaying repeatedly the violence of the day.
Democrats, meanwhile, clashed with Donald Trump’s former Pentagon chief about the unprepared government response to a riot that began when hundreds of Trump loyalists bent on overturning the election broke through police barriers, smashed windows and laid siege to the building.
The colliding lines of questioning, and a failure to settle on a universally agreed-upon set of facts, underscored the challenges Congress faces as it sets out to investigate the violence and government missteps. The House Oversight Committee hearing unfolded just after Republicans in the chamber voted to remove Rep. Liz Cheney from her leadership post for rebuking Trump for his false claims of election fraud and his role in inciting the attack.
Former acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller and former acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, testifying publicly for the first time about Jan. 6, defended their agencies’ responses to the chaos. But the hearing almost immediately devolved into partisan bickering about how that day unfolded, with at least one Republican brazenly stating there wasn’t an insurrection at all….
Some fantastical claims by Republicans:
Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona played video footage of violence outside the federal courthouse in Portland last summer. Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia said that while “there were some rioters” on Jan. 6, it was a “bold-faced lie” to call it an insurrection and likened it in some ways to a “normal tourist visit.”
Apres le Dejunier, Berthe Morisot
In ways that fundamentally rewrote the facts of the day and the investigations that resulted, Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona said the Justice Department was “harassing peaceful patriots.” He described Ashli Babbit, a California woman who was fatally shot by an officer during the insurrection after climbing through the broken part of a door, as having been “executed,” even though prosecutors have said the officer won’t be prosecuted because the shooting did not break the law.
“It was Trump supporters who lost their lives that day, not Trump supporters who were taking the lives of others,” said Rep. Jody Hice of Georgia, downplaying the violent tactics used by loyalists to the president, including spraying officers with pepper and bear spray.
Raw Story on Paul Gosar of Arizona, who actually helped organize the January 6 rally: Trump-loving congressman Paul Gosar rants about MAGA rioter Ashli Babbitt being ‘executed’ by Capitol cops.
Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) on Wednesday delivered a rant in which he declared that Capitol police “executed” pro-Trump rioter Ashli Babbitt.
During a hearing on the January 6th Capitol riots before the House Oversight Committee, Gosar angrily charged that opponents of former President Donald Trump were using “propaganda” to make the MAGA rioters seem worse than they really were.
He also accused Capitol police of using unnecessary force when one of them fatally shot Babbitt, who during the riots was trying to breach a set of doors that were just outside the House chamber where lawmakers were hiding in shelter on January 6th after the breach of the Capitol building.
Here’s a different take on the Ashli Babbitt story at Law and Crime: Capitol Rioter Wanted to Lynch Black Officer He Believed Shot Ashli Babbitt, Prosecutors Say.
A U.S. Capitol rioter from Texas who said that he brought a rope with him to Congress on Jan. 6 threatened days later to lynch a Black police officer that he believed fatally shot Ashli Babbitt, federal prosecutors wrote in a legal brief on Monday. The startling allegation surfaced in court papers against 34-year-old Garret Miller, whom prosecutors want to keep behind bars pending trial.
Drinking tea in the garden by Edit B. Toth
Babbitt was fatally shot when she and the other rioters tried to break into the Speaker’s Lobby, where lawmakers had taken cover.
According to prosecutors, Miller referred to Babbitt as his “sister in battle” and began to see himself as her avenger.
“He became consumed with her death and circulated photographs on Facebook of an African-American police officer that he believed was responsible for her death,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth C. Kelley wrote in a 16-page legal brief on Monday. “Miller threatened to kill that officer, stating that he wanted to ‘hug his neck with a nice rope’ and that ‘he will swing.’ He also said that the officer deserved to die and that ‘it’s huntin season.’”
“His fixation with hunting down and hanging a USCP officer is extremely concerning,” prosecutors added of Miller.
Now facing a 12-count indictment, Miller has been charged with assaulting police officers, threatening to assassinate Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), and several charges related to U.S. Capitol insurrection. Prosecutors say that Miller’s remarks were especially chilling in light of what authorities found in his house.
But Georgia Rep. Andrew Clyde claimed the rioters looked like normal tourists. NBC News:
During a House Oversight Committee hearing on the Jan. 6 riot, Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., said the House floor was not breached and that the supporters of former President Donald Trump who stormed the Capitol behaved “in an orderly fashion.” [….]
“As one of the members who stayed in the Capitol, and on the House floor, who with other Republican colleagues helped barricade the door until almost 3 p.m. from the mob who tried to enter, I can tell you the House floor was never breached and it was not an insurrection. This is the truth,” Clyde claimed….
“There was an undisciplined mob. There were some rioters, and some who committed acts of vandalism. But let me be clear, there was no insurrection and to call it an insurrection in my opinion, is a bold faced lie. Watching the TV footage of those who entered the Capitol, and walk through Statuary Hall showed people in an orderly fashion staying between the stanchions and ropes taking videos and pictures, you know,” he continued.
“If you didn’t know that TV footage was a video from January the sixth, you would actually think it was a normal tourist visit,” Clyde said.
Paul Wonner, The Newspaper, 1960
Tell that to police officer Michael Fanone who was beaten by rioters and now suffers from PTSD. The Washington Post: Body-cam footage shows Capitol rioter celebrating as D.C. cop is beaten and Tasered: ‘I got one!’
Those don’t look like normal tourists to me.
Yesterday Republicans also excommunicated far right conservative Liz Cheney for telling the truth about what happened on January 6, including Trump’s culpability for the riot.
The ongoing battle between truth and lies, and the continued fallout from the January 6 insurrection, played out Wednesday on Capitol Hill with critical oversight hearings and a landmark vote among the House Republicans to oust Liz Cheney from their leadership ranks.
The extraordinary day saw Cheney removed by voice vote in a 20-minute session that featured her fellow lawmakers booing her remarks about former President Donald Trump’s falsehoods about election fraud and then having members mock her on social media.
A House Oversight Committee hearing about “unexplained delays and unanswered questions” from January 6, featured Republican lawmakers attempt to deny basic facts about the insurrection and saw former acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller and former acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen resisting efforts to shed more light on Trump’s response to the riot. The Senate also held a hearing on domestic extremism that shed light on homegrown threats….
At the garden table, Auguste Macke
Rosen revealed that he met with Trump on January 3, just three days before the insurrection. He said they didn’t talk about the security planning for January 6, but he repeatedly refused to answer questions from House Oversight Committee Democrats about what he discussed with Trump at that meeting.
“I cannot tell you, consistent with my obligations today, about private conversations with the President, one way or the other,” Rosen said, later saying he “tried to be as forthcoming as I can” but that there are “ground rules” set by the Justice Department that he must “abide by.” Rosen did not elaborate on the alleged “ground rules” and passed on opportunities to shed more light on the insurrection.
This left Democrats stunned, including Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia, who pointed out that nobody invoked executive privilege before the hearing, and Rep. Kweisi Mfume of Maryland, who asked Rosen if Trump ever talked to him about overturning the results of the 2020 election.
Read more details from the hearing at the link.
Hayes Brown at MSNBC: GOP lies about Jan. 6 are getting bolder — and more dangerous.
Four months ago, the U.S. Capitol was overrun. Lawmakers fled their chambers as the mob surged past police lines. Many feared for their lives as former President Donald Trump did nothing to halt the rioters’ march through the building in his name.
Since then, we’ve seen a shift in tone from Republicans who were there that day. I’ve argued that the GOP is taking advantage of Trump’s social media silencing to work undistracted on making the next election easier to overturn.
But it’s becoming clear to me that it’s worse than that. Some members of Congress are getting bolder in their defense of Trump’s actions before and after the election. They aren’t just denying that Trump incited a mob as they rewrite election laws: They’re denying that the mob was ever a threat at all, justifying the violence of that day.
A hearing on Wednesday in the House Oversight and Reform Committee was meant to get some answers to the many questions about what was going on inside the Trump administration on Jan. 6 as the mob tried to stop the count of electoral votes. Unfortunately, the star witnesses of the day, former acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller and former acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, were less informative than hoped. Miller in particular walked back his written testimony during his opening statement, refusing to say Trump had incited the protesters that day.
That wasn’t the worst rewrite of history at the hearing, though. That dubious honor goes to Republicans on the panel. In their telling, what happened on Jan. 6 was just some Trump supporters taking an unscheduled walk through the halls of Congress and the Capitol Police overreacting.
One more from Richard Wolffe at The Guardian: The point of the Republican party? To stroke the ego of Trump.
What is the point of the Republican party?
This isn’t a flip question. It’s one prompted by the last four months of grappling with the fallout of the bloody insurrection on Capitol Hill, and by the last four years of grappling with the fallout of installing a fascist in the White House.
Lunch in the Garden, Henri Lebasque
So, for real: what does the GOP stand for? Apart from trying to seize back power, what does it want to do?
The answer, as Liz Cheney has learned, is to pander to the ego of a single Florida resident who has no obvious or coherent political purpose.
This might just explain why the party has been struggling so hard to respond to the last four months of the most tenuous Democratic control in Washington.
The Biden team has not commanded the nation’s capital from a position of strength because of LBJ-like powers of persuasion, Democratic unity or structural majorities. They have succeeded because Republicans sorely lack – as George HW Bush used to put it – the vision thing….
There was a time, not so long ago, when the GOP stood for small government, or big business, or at least big churches, or sometimes the little guy. They were for standing up to foreign enemies and domestic taxes….
After four years of Donald Trump, that is no longer the world we’re living in. To be fair, three decades’ worth of upheaval – the colossal failures of the war on terror, the financial crisis, a historic pandemic, the climate crisis and a technological revolution – may have made matters worse.
But here we are nonetheless at a point where the Grand Old Party has shrunk into a small old cult of personality, willing to twist and turn to the whims of its sociopathic former leader.
Consistency meant nothing inside the cult. More billions of spending on a nonsensical border wall? The deficit hawks said no problem. More bullying business leaders by presidential tweet? The capitalist caucus said bring it on. More cozying up to the leaders of Russia, China and even North Korea? The defense hawks thought that sounded fine. Paying off porn stars with campaign dollars? The party of family values barely blushed.
Each one of these big and small sellouts brought the party to the point where it fired Liz Cheney from the House leadership on Tuesday for stating the obvious: Trump lost the election last year and stoked an insurrection to save face.
The only solution to this battle between reality and fantasy is an independent commission to investigation the insurrection writes Kate Brannen at Just Security: Getting to the Bottom of Jan. 6 Is Proving Too Difficult for Congress.
If Wednesday’s House hearing on “unanswered questions” about the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was good for anything, it showed why an independent commission is needed to investigate what happened that day.
Tea in the Garden, Henri Matisse, 1919
It was the first time that former acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller and former acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen testified about the decisions and actions they took. Metropolitan Police Chief Robert Contee also testified, but his actions are under far less scrutiny because his police officers responded immediately and essentially saved the day. He had also already testified about these matters in the Senate.
Despite this opportunity to question Miller and Rosen (and the important questions they could have been asked), members of the House Oversight Committee elicited little new information. Instead, precious time was wasted with grandstanding and aggressive posturing on both sides. Whether it’s Democrats admonishing the witnesses before they have a chance to speak or, worse yet, Republicans flooding the zone with disinformation, it’s increasingly clear that Congress is not up to the task of investigating the events of that day.
That’s a shame, because when it comes to Jan. 6, there are essentially two security failures that demand accountability (not to mention the role played by former President Donald Trump): the failure to prepare and understand the signals of what was coming and a failure to quickly get federal forces to respond once it was underway. The Department of Justice and the FBI bear some responsibility for the first failure, which left the U.S. government flat-footed when the attack began. The Defense Department, which Miller oversaw, was responsible for fielding requests for support from the D.C. National Guard and then authorizing its deployment, and so, is at the center of responsibility for the second failure.
Click the link to read the rest.
Is there any way to get past the GOP lies and obfuscation? Is an independent investigation possible? I hope so.
As always, this is an open thread.
Tuesday Reads
Posted: May 11, 2021 Filed under: just because 10 Comments
Good Morning!!
Is there any possibility that Trump could actually be prosecuted? Former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara thinks it could happen. He gave an interview to Dahlia Lithwick at Slate, published yesterday: How Close Are We to Criminal Charges for Donald Trump?
To the extent anyone thinks about Trump anymore, it’s gleefully imagining his criminal exposure in the after times, both in New York and elsewhere in the country. I gather he’s facing what, 29 lawsuits, three criminal investigations, like a lot.
A whole bunch.
His tax returns are in the hands of Cyrus Vance Jr., the district attorney of Manhattan. They’re working to flip folks in the Trump organization. I wonder what piece of that you’re watching or are you just watching all of it? What do you expect to see in terms of accountability and having some sense that there is some closure to any of this?
People often, particularly if they’re not lawyers, conflate some of these legal challenges that the former president faces with the civil cases. There’s not that much that we know about by way of criminal investigations. The one that we know about most directly and most prominently is the one you mentioned, the Manhattan district attorney’s investigation into Trump’s finances and business dealings.
Preet Bharara
I don’t know because I’ve not been in the grand jury, I’ve not interviewed the witnesses. Cy Vance doesn’t call me up and tell me stuff, but there is some signaling going on. Cy Vance is not running for reelection. Vance is, as they say, a lame duck. As a lame duck, he’s done certain things, including hiring an outside forensic accounting firm, which is not super unusual but it’s not that common. He’s done something else that is less common, which is hire an outside lawyer, Mark Pomerantz, who’s a very distinguished, well-respected lawyer in New York. I’m not going to put too much weight on it, but it seems like the kind of move you make when you believe that there’s going to be a charge or there’s a good likelihood of a charge, because it’s a pretty public thing to do. It also risks alienating people in your own office. It’s just a gut feeling that I have that taking these actions indicates to me that that office believes there’s a decent likelihood of a charge, and so that’s the one I’d be watching.
It doesn’t sound farfetched to think, “Well, when it suited him, Donald Trump inflated the value of his holdings. Otherwise he understated the value of his holdings.” Both of which can incriminate him criminally and subject him to exposure. That all sounds like it makes sense. There’s also the reporting that Michael Cohen, his former lawyer who was prosecuted by SDNY, has met with prosecutors and investigators with the DA’s office like a gazillion times.
All of those things, again, they’re not dispositive, but they all indicate to me that it’s a very serious undertaking. They’re taking it very seriously. They’re spending a lot of resources on it, and you don’t do that if it’s a long shot, I don’t think.
It’s a lengthy interview. Bharara goes on to discuss other possible ways that Trump could be held accountable.
There’s two categories of things that I think about. One is stuff we don’t know. I find it hard to believe we know the full scope and landscape of the things that Donald Trump did behind the scenes that were improper, unethical, and perhaps criminal because there’s not been an excavation. I don’t know if there are people who are thinking about doing that excavation, and I don’t know if there are people who are thinking about coming forward.
Trump still strikes fear in the hearts of people who would betray him—that’s elected officials and perhaps also people in his Cabinet. He hasn’t lost that power yet. I had assumed at some point that there might be the possibility of people coming forward and saying, “You don’t know the half of it.” You know, what he did with respect to DHS, what he did with respect to this, that, or the other thing, and how many other enforcement actions he tried to interfere with. There’s that category, the stuff we don’t know about, which I’ve just got to believe there is something there.
Then the other stuff that’s big ticket that happened out in the open for which there was an attempt to hold him accountable: the “Big Lie” of the election, his involvement in the incitement of the riot and the insurrection on Jan. 6, the stuff he did with the interference in the election in Georgia. I don’t know if he’ll get any accountability there. I don’t know that the administration has the interest and stomach to do something there, especially when there’s an interest in moving on.
Bharara says he agrees with the characterization of Trump as similar to a mob boss, and that makes it hard to prosecute him, because he gets people to do his bidding through coded communications. He also discusses Rudy Giuliani–his history and his current behavior.
CNN broke some news this morning about the Matt Gaetz case: Federal investigators press for cooperation from two key witnesses in Gaetz probe.
Federal investigators scrutinizing Rep. Matt Gaetz are seeking the cooperation of a former Capitol Hill intern who was once a girlfriend of the Florida Republican, sources familiar with the matter tell CNN.
Investigators could also soon gain the formal cooperation of a second key witness, former Florida county tax collector Joel Greenberg, who is approaching a deadline this week to strike a plea agreement with the government on more than two dozen charges he’s facing.
The pursuit of the cooperation comes as investigators are nearly finished collecting evidence, one source said. The probe, which is examining whether Gaetz broke federal sex trafficking, prostitution and public corruption laws and whether he had sex with a minor, has been ongoing for months.
But decisions on whether to charge Gaetz have yet to be made and will fall to prosecutors in the public integrity section of the Justice Department. That decision is likely to take some time, another source familiar with the matter said, as the Justice Department considers whether there’s sufficient evidence for an indictment.
The cooperation of Greenberg and the former girlfriend could be among the final steps in the probe of Gaetz. Investigators view both as crucial to understanding the relevance of hundreds of transactions they have obtained records of, including those involving payments for sex, sources familiar with the investigation tell CNN. The ex-girlfriend could also be questioned by investigators about a second woman as they try to determine whether Gaetz may have slept with that woman when she was only 17.
The former girlfriend, who did not work in Gaetz’s office on Capitol Hill, is of interest to investigators because she was on a trip Gaetz took to the Bahamas in 2018 and is believed to have knowledge of drug use and arrangements with women, the sources say.
Read more details at CNN.
There’s no evidence that people are refusing to look for work because they are getting increased unemployment benefits from the government, but Republican governors think they know better.
Bess Levin at Vanity Fair: Republican Governors Giddily Announce Plans to Kick People Off Unemployment.
It’s true that the GOP talks a big game about caring about regular old middle-class Americans, but in reality it despises them. How do we know this? For one thing, Republican policies overwhelmingly benefit corporate America and the very wealthy. For another, Republican lawmakers actively try to strip any government benefits they can from people not lucky enough to earn $200,000 a year at the age of three.
Most recently, a bunch of Republican governors have decided that the unemployed in their states are lazy bums who don’t deserve the increased federal benefits they’ve been receiving thanks to the American Rescue Plan, and that starting in June, they won’t. Per CBS News:
“A growing number of Republican-led states are rejecting increased unemployment benefits meant to help Americans during the coronavirus pandemic, a move they say will help business owners who can’t find staff.… [Officials] in Montana, South Carolina, and Arkansas have announced they will exit the program by the end of June. Montana governor Greg Gianforte said the “vast expansion of federal unemployment benefits is now doing more harm than good.”
On Sunday, Utah governor Spencer Cox told CNN he thinks exiting pandemic-related unemployment benefits is a good idea, arguing the recent lower-than-expected jobs report is “what happens when we pay people not to work.””
If this argument sounds familiar, it‘s because it’s the same recycled one Republicans regularly make about how helping people in need will disincentive them from helping themselves. The only problem is that like most things out of the mouths of Republicans of late, it’s not actually true
“Several studies have examined the connection between benefits and unemployed people returning to work. In February, a study by JPMorgan Chase Institute found little evidence that increased benefits discouraged people from returning to the job. It found after Congress boosted supplemental insurance to $600 last spring at the onset of the pandemic, many jobless workers who received the money returned to work before the supplement expired.
Speaking at the White House press briefing Friday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen also claimed data does not support the argument that increased unemployment benefits are leading to a workforce shortage. She said when they looked at states and sectors where supplemental benefits were high, there weren’t lower job finding rates as the argument would suggest, and in fact it was the “exact opposite.” A separate study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago looking at unemployment insurance and job searching using data from 2013 through 2019 found those receiving unemployment benefits search more intensely for work over those not receiving benefits and once benefits drop off, search efforts drop steeply.”
More from Joel Mathis at The Week: The war on the unemployed.
For the American economy to run properly, a certain portion of the working-age population must be poor and, preferably, a little bit desperate.
Or so you would think, given the hysterical reaction to last week’s report showing the country’s job growth lagged far behind expectations in April. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce bouyed this message with a response suggesting workers have grown too fat and sassy while collecting unemployment benefits made more generous by Congress during the pandemic.
Best to cut off those benefits, instead.
“The disappointing jobs report makes it clear that paying people not to work is dampening what should be a stronger jobs market,” the organization said in a written statement. It added: “One step policymakers should take now is ending the $300 weekly supplemental unemployment benefit.”
A few GOP-led states — Arkansas, Montana, and South Carolina — jumped at the Chamber’s suggestion, saying they will soon end their participation in the federal program that pays out the extra $300 a week to jobless workers. And Republicans in Congress said they would move quickly to phase out the benefit, which is already slated to end in September….
This hostility toward the unemployed will come as no surprise to anybody who has been paying attention to the more predatory aspects of American capitalism, or who recoiled last year when Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) suggested that older COVID-vulnerable citizens should be willing to lay down their lives for the economy, or who noted that Republicans resisted supplementing unemployment benefits even at the beginning of the pandemic when the economy was contracting by millions of jobs and those who could keep working risked exposure to a dangerous and deadly new virus. Even then, GOP officials were fearful that workers would find it too easy to sit at home.
There’s much more worth reading at the link.
Speaking of misinformation, have you heard that musician Van Morrison has become a Covid conspiracy nut?
The Los Angeles Times: What happened to Van Morrison? The fall from eccentric genius to conspiracy theorist.
Outside of the circles of his most dedicated fans, the arrival of a Van Morrison album in the 21st century has not been a news event. That trend stopped last week, however, when Morrison, 75, released “Latest Record Project, Vol. 1,” a 28-track double album that includes eyebrow-raising song titles such as “Where Have All the Rebels Gone,” “Why Are You on Facebook?” and “Stop Bitching, Do Something.” This album is now very much news: Variety published a list of “The 10 Craziest Lyrics” from the record, while the Jerusalem Post rounded up all of the claims of anti-Semitism implied in his song called “They Own the Media” and other lyrics scattered throughout.
This turn toward the alt-right didn’t come out of nowhere. Broadly speaking, Morrison’s career arc looks something like this: He went from being a brash teenage wunderkind with his band Them, to a promising young solo artist (“Brown Eyed Girl”), to a moody, soulful poet casually creating masterpieces (“Astral Weeks” and “Moondance”), to a middle-aged curmudgeon showcasing occasional moments of brilliance (“Common One”), until he slowly devolved into a boozy-uncle type, cranking out boilerplate blues LPs while leaning on his earlier legacy to fill concert halls….
More recently, the global coronavirus pandemic and the ensuing prohibition of live concerts appear to have shocked and infuriated the singer. In August 2020, Morrison published a screed on his official website explaining that he needed to get his “band up and running and out of the doldrums. … We need to be playing to full capacity audiences going forward.” In a subsequently deleted message, he went further, denouncing the validity of the science behind social distancing and quarantine. “I call on my fellow singers, musicians, writers, producers, promoters and others in the industry to fight with me on this. Come forward, stand up, fight the pseudo-science and speak up.”
Back in the fall of 2020, Morrison announced three topical singles protesting COVID-19 restrictions plus a petition to end the temporary ban on live concerts. In one of these songs, “No More Lockdown,” he crooned about scientists “making up crooked facts,” labeling the perpetrators of these measures “fascist bullies.” In an unprecedented turn of events, the songs became cause for Northern Ireland’s health minister, Robin Swann, to pen an op-ed for Rolling Stone, calling Morrison’s new lyrics “dangerous” and a great comfort to “the tinfoil hat brigade who crusade against masks and vaccines and think this is all a huge global plot to remove freedoms.”
Read the rest at the LA Times.
I’ll add a few more stories in the comment thread. I hope you all have a great Tuesday!
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