Losar Tashi Delek to you, Sky Dancers! Happy 2150 to everybody!
So, it’s the beginning of a new year for those of us following the Buddhism of the Himalayas. Tomorrow is Mardi Gras, and I’m following the traditional old-school way of resting up the day before. Plus, Losar is a day to clean house; mine needs that more than I need to see a few parades.
When my kids were younger, we read Jataka stories during Spring break. These stories are lessons in developing a moral framework.
Ani Wangmo, a Tibetan Buddhist nun, reminded me of one story that always seemed sad and yet, heroic. This is an excellent lesson to think about on this auspicious day!
Irrelated to astrology, rabbit is one of the four harmonious friends from Buddhist folklore, sharing their living environment and collaborating peacefully. May all beings strive for such harmony in the world, in this year and beyond.
In a Jataka story a rabbit’s virtue draws attention of the gods, who challenge him to test the sincerity of his dedication to serving others. The rabbit sacrificed his life for others, and in his honour the gods imprinted his shape to the moon, so that when we look at it, we can always remember virtue. May we always selflessly strive to benefit all beings.
Losar Shrine with chemar bo (butter sculptures) at the new Gyuto Foundation Center in Richmond, California. You’ll notice this butter sculpture has our friends.
This story also reminds me of former President and Rosalyn Carter, who spent endless hours rebuilding and building homes in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Today, the story reminds me of other harmonious friends as President Biden’s surprise trip to Ukraine demonstrates our country’s unwavering commitment to democracy abroad, even if it’s endangered here at home. This is the headline from the New York Times. “Biden Visits Kyiv, Ukraine’s Embattled Capital, as Air-Raid Siren Sounds. President Biden took a nearly 10-hour train ride from the border of Poland to show his administration’s “unwavering support” nearly a year into Russia’s invasion.” Good for him because the FAUX nation wants to bail on them.
President Biden made a surprise trip to the embattled capital of Ukraine on Monday, traveling under a cloak of secrecy into a war zone to demonstrate what he called America’s “unwavering support” of the effort to beat back Russian forces nearly a year after they invaded the country.
Mr. Biden arrived early Monday morning to meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky, and the two stepped out into the streets of Kyiv even as an air-raid siren sounded, a dramatic moment that underscored the investment the United States has made in Ukraine’s independence.
“One year later, Kyiv stands,” Mr. Biden declared at Mr. Zelensky’s side in Mariinsky Palace, the gilded ceremonial home of the Ukrainian president. “And Ukraine stands. Democracy stands.”
“Thank you so much for coming, Mr. President, at a huge moment for Ukraine,” Mr. Zelensky said.
Mr. Biden promised to release another $500 million in military aid in coming days, mentioning artillery ammunition, Javelin missiles and Howitzers, but he did not talk about the advanced arms that Ukraine has sought. Mr. Zelensky told reporters that he and the president spoke about “long range weapons and the weapons that may still be supplied to Ukraine even though it wasn’t supplied before.”
This is from David Rothkopf at the Daily Beast. “Biden’s Trip to Kyiv is the Ultimate Humiliation for Putin—and Trump.” It should humiliate the Fucks at FAUX, but hey, they just care about their ratings.
Stirringly, just days ahead of the one year anniversary of Russia’s brutal offensive against Ukraine, Biden walked through the streets of Kyiv, paid his respects to those who had fallen in defense of Ukraine, and said, “Freedom is priceless. It’s worth fighting for, for as long as it takes.”
Biden also movingly invoked the conversation he had with Zelensky last February as Russia’s massive escalation of its nine-year-old war of unprovoked aggression against Ukraine. He recalled with Zelensky at his side, “You said you didn’t know when we’d be able to speak again. That dark night…the world was literally bracing for the fall of Kyiv…perhaps even the end of Ukraine.”
Of course, the symbolism of the American president standing alongside Zelensky, walking through the Ukrainian capital even as air raid sirens sounded, carried many other messages as well.
To those fighting for Ukraine, it was a vitally important message of solidarity that came with further commitments from Biden of military support for Ukraine.
To Vladimir Putin, it was Biden’s way of saying, “I am here in Kyiv and you are not. You not only did not take Kyiv in days as some predicted, but your attack was rebuffed. Your army suffered a humiliating defeat from which it has not recovered.”
Chotrul Duchen Monlam Chenmo – Great Prayer Festival of Miracles- Tibetan Butter Lantern Festival 2023
And, now we turn our eyes to the Fucks at Faux News. Mike Allen of Axios has this exclusive. “Scoop: McCarthy gives Tucker Carlson access to trove of Jan. 6 riot tape. “It’s not very comforting knowing that second in line to Biden is this fascist jerk.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has given Fox News’ Tucker Carlson exclusive access to 41,000 hours of Capitol surveillance footage from the Jan. 6 riot, McCarthy sources tell me.
- Carlson TV producers were on Capitol Hill last week to begin digging through the trove, which includes multiple camera angles from all over Capitol grounds. Excerpts will begin airing in the coming weeks.
Why it matters: Carlson has repeatedly questioned official accounts of 1/6, downplaying the insurrection as “vandalism.”
- Now his shows — “Tucker Carlson Tonight” on Fox News, and “Tucker Carlson Today” and “Tucker Carlson Originals” on the streaming service Fox Nation — have a massive trove of raw material.
Carlson told me: “[T]here was never any legitimate reason for this footage to remain secret.”
- “If there was ever a question that’s in the public’s interest to know, it’s what actually happened on January 6. By definition, this video will reveal it. It’s impossible for me to understand why any honest person would be bothered by that.”
There’s some more on the MAGA Propaganda Station today. Charles Kaiser writes this news at The Guardian, “How Dominion Voting Systems filing proves Fox News was ‘deliberately lying'”
Document makes clear senior Fox News figures knew after 2020 election voter fraud claims were false – and it’s likely a landmark case
The Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe said Dominion Voting Systems’ brief requesting summary judgment against Fox News for defamation – and $1.6bn – is “likely to succeed and likely to be a landmark” in the history of freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
“I have never seen a defamation case with such overwhelming proof that the defendant admitted in writing that it was making up fake information in order to increase its viewership and its revenues,” Tribe told the Guardian. “Fox and its producers and performers were lying as part of their business model.”
The case concerns Fox News’s repetition of Donald Trump’s lie that his 2020 defeat by Joe Biden was the result of electoral fraud, including claims about Dominion voting machines.
Tribe said the filing “establishes that Fox was not only reckless” but also that producers, owners and personalities were “deliberately lying and knew they were lying about the nature of Dominion’s machines and the supposed way they could be manipulated”.
Filed last week, the 192-page document makes it clear that senior figures at Fox News from Rupert Murdoch down knew immediately after the election that claims of voter fraud, in particular those aimed at Dominion, were false.
Tucker Carlson called the charges “ludicrous” and “off the rails”. Sean Hannity texted about “F’ing lunatics”. A senior network vice-president called one of the stories “MIND BLOWINGLY NUTS”.
But none of this knowledge prevented hosts from repeating lies about everything from imaginary algorithms shaving votes from Dominion machines to non-existent ties between the company and Venezuela
Tribe was one of several first amendment experts to call the filing nearly unprecedented.
More comments from the other expert witnesses are in the article at the link above.
Here are two articles showing how climate change is causing global havoc. BB’s Boston has hardly had a winter. It’s in the 80s in New Orleans for the end of the Carnivale season and the beginning of Lent. That’s a little early for those temperatures.
Ana Mano / Reuters:
Three dozen dead as Brazil rains cause calamity
Oliver Milman / The Guardian:
‘Not much time left’: Salt Lake City’s mayor on the Great Lake drying up
This is from last fall from the Yale Enviornment 360. “As Himalayan Glaciers Melt, a Water Crisis Looms in South Asia. Warmer air is thinning most of the vast mountain range’s glaciers, known as the Third Pole, because they contain so much ice. The melting could have far-reaching consequences for flood risk and for water security for a billion people who rely on meltwater for their survival.”
Spring came early this year in the high mountains of Gilgit-Baltistan, a remote border region of Pakistan. Record temperatures in March and April hastened melting of the Shisper Glacier, creating a lake that swelled and, on May 7, burst through an ice dam. A torrent of water and debris flooded the valley below, damaging fields and houses, wrecking two power plants, and washing away parts of the main highway and a bridge connecting Pakistan and China.
Pakistan’s climate change minister, Sherry Rehman, tweeted videos of the destruction and highlighted the vulnerability of a region with the largest number of glaciers outside the Earth’s poles. Why were these glaciers losing mass so quickly? Rehman put it succinctly. “High global temperatures,” she said.
Just over a decade ago, relatively little was known about glaciers in the Hindu Kush Himalayas, the vast ice mountains that run across Central and South Asia, from Afghanistan in the west to Myanmar in the east. But a step-up in research in the past 10 years — spurred in part by an embarrassing error in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2007 Fourth Assessment Report, which predicted that Himalayan glaciers could melt away by 2035 — has led to enormous strides in understanding.
Like I said, Lundi Gras is still my day of rest! But here’s a look at what’s going on today! So, this is my peak holiday season! Y’all can keep that stuff after Halloween and before Twelfth night!
Have a great day, whatever you’re up to!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Lorenzo the Cat has learned the identity of the handsome Turkish man who went viral after he rescued a cat from the rubble of the earthquake. His name is Ali Cacas, and he is on Twitter.
Hola!: Pet of the Week: Cat Saved from Turkey Earthquake Refuses to Leave his Rescuer’s Side.
Following the tragic 7.7 and 7.6 magnitude earthquake in Turkey and Syria, search teams worked hard to help the victims of the terrifying natural disaster. Members of the Mardin Fire Department were able to find many survivors, even 11 days after the two earthquakes.
Among the survivors, there was a cat trapped in the rubble of a collapsed building in the district of Defne. Ali Cakas, one of the members of the rescue team, found the adorable cat 9 days after the tragedy and decided to name him Enkas, which translates to Rubble.
The rescued cat instantly became a sign of hope amid the immense tragedy, not just because he was able to survive with minor injuries, but also because he showed how grateful he was with the 33-year-old rescuer.
Rubble became viral after the search team noticed that he decided to stick around. The cat showed his appreciation by not leaving Ali’s side, standing on his shoulder after being found. But the incredible story of Rubble doesn’t end here, as Ali decided to take him home and adopted him, becoming the mascot of the Mardin Fire Department.
The team continues to work day and night to find more survivors, including pets that might still be trapped in the rubble.
This bonus rescued cat is from Ukraine.
Now for the news of the day–interspersed with more cat tweets for relief.
Vice President Harris gave a major speech in Germany this morning. The Washington Post: Russia has committed ‘crimes against humanity’ in Ukraine, Harris declares.
Vice President Harris said Saturday that the United States believes strongly that Russia has committed crimes against humanity and needs to be held to account for ghastly actions that have been describedin intelligence reports and international headlines, including bombing a maternity hospital, forcibly relocating and “reeducating” Ukrainian children, and, just months ago, the suspected sexual assault of a 4-year-old girl.
“In the case of Russia’s actions in Ukraine, we have examined the evidence, we know the legal standards, and there is no doubt: These are crimes against humanity,” Harris said.
Speaking in moral terms a year after Russia invaded Ukraine, Harris told diplomatic, intelligence and defense leaders gathered at the Munich Security Conference that the world has a humanitarian and strategic interest in continued support of the besieged nation, even as the White House has warned Kyiv that fissures and fatigue threaten its global support a year into the conflict.
Harris stressed that standing firm against Russian aggression sends a message to “other authoritarian powers that could seek to bend the world to their will through coercion, disinformation and even a brute force.”
Later, she added, “We have come together to stand for our common values and our common interests. And our common humanity.”
You’ve probably heard about this awful story about child labor. NBC News: Federal officials say more than 100 children worked in dangerous jobs for slaughterhouse cleaning firm.
The Labor Department said Friday it found 102 children as young as 13 working hazardous overnight jobs cleaning slaughterhouses in eight states in what it called a “corporate-wide failure” by one of the largest food sanitation companies in the country, Packers Sanitation Services Inc.
In a statement, the company said, “We are pleased to have finalized this settlement figure as part of our previously announced December resolution with the Department of Labor (DOL) that ends their inquiry. We have been crystal clear from the start: Our company has a zero-tolerance policy against employing anyone under the age of 18 and fully shares the DOL’s objective of ensuring full compliance at all locations.”
“As soon as we became aware of the DOL’s allegations, we conducted multiple additional audits of our employee base. … Our audits and DOL’s investigation confirmed that none of the individuals DOL cited as under the age of 18 work for the company today, and many had separated from employment with PSSI multiple years ago. The DOL has also not identified any managers aware of improper conduct that are currently employed by PSSI.”
“We are fully committed to working with DOL to make additional improvements to enforce our prohibition of employing anyone under the age of 18.”
It seems kind of unbelievable that they bosses didn’t know about this.
Packers Sanitation Services has paid a $1.5 million fine for the violations. The fine amount is dictated by the Fair Labor Standards Act, which allows a penalty of $15,138 for each minor who was employed in violation of the law, according to the Labor Department.
The Labor Department says the children who were working overnight shifts used “caustic chemicals to clean razor-sharp saws.” The company employs 17,000 workers at 700 sites nationwide.
“Our investigation found Packers Sanitation Services’ systems flagged some young workers as minors, but the company ignored the flags. When the Wage and Hour Division arrived with warrants, the adults — who had recruited, hired and supervised these children — tried to derail our efforts to investigate their employment practices,” said Michael Lazzeri, regional administrator for the division in Chicago….
Advocates and lawyers for the children say some of the child workers for PSSI were unaccompanied minors who recently came across the southern border. Unaccompanied minors are processed by the Border Patrol and then turned over to the Office of Refugee Resettlement within the Department of Health and Human Services. The children are then matched with sponsors who usually have some link to their families.
It figures.
Another miserable white man went on a shooting rampage in Mississippi yesterday. CNN: Man arrested after 6 killed, including suspect’s ex-wife, in series of shootings in Mississippi, sheriff says.
Six people are dead and another was wounded Friday in a series of shootings in Tate County, Mississippi after a man opened fire on his ex-wife and potentially other family members, Tate County Sheriff Brad Lance told CNN.
The suspect, Richard Dale Crum, 52, was arrested after the alleged rampage and is facing charges of first-degree murder in connection with the case, the sheriff’s office said. Additional charges are expected to be filed, the department said.
Authorities got the first 911 call around 11 a.m. ET after the suspect pulled into the parking lot of a store in Arkabutla, a small rural town in northern Mississippi, and fired into the car next to him where he fatally shot the driver, Lance said. Another person in the vehicle was not injured.
Lance said the suspected gunman went into the store then took off, driving to his ex-wife’s home. Lance said the suspect shot and killed his ex-wife before striking her fiancé, who was also in the residence.
Deputies caught up to the suspect after finding a vehicle matching its description in front of a residence that authorities determined belonged to him, Lance said.
On a small road behind the suspect’s home, authorities found two men who had been shot and killed. One was found on the road and the other was in a vehicle, Lance said.
Another two victims were found shot and killed in a house neighboring the suspect’s home, Lance said. According to Lance, deputies believe the suspect might be related to the victims, a man and woman.
You’d think even the gun-loving Republicans would be getting sick to death of this, but it seems they will put up with any amount of violence and death to keep their precious assault rifles.
Another Virginia 6-year-old took a gun to school on Thursday. The Virginian Pilot: 6-year-old brings handgun to Norfolk elementary school, police say; mother charged.
Norfolk police charged the mother of a 6-year-old whom police said brought a handgun to Little Creek Elementary School on Thursday.
According to a police press release, police were called to Little Creek Elementary located at 7901 Nancy Drive around 3:30 p.m. Thursday for a report of a student having a weapon in school.
The handgun was turned over to police by a school staff member, and no injuries were reported.
The mother was charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor and allowing access to a loaded firearm by children. She was issued a summons. The Virginian-Pilot is not identifying her to avoid the possibility of identifying the child….
Meanwhile, Newport News police are still investigating whether to bring charges against the parents or anyone else in the case of a 6-year-old first grader who shot his teacher at Richneck Elementary School on Jan. 6.
Thank goodness this kid didn’t shoot anyone. Parents have to be charged for these incidents.
At The Grid, Eric Sandy has a deep dive on the train derailment disaster in Ohio: Inside the hell of East Palestine: Unanswered questions, frustration and the lingering threat of toxic chemicals.
EAST PALESTINE, Ohio — As the wind picked up here, on Wednesday, several thousand residents joined public officials, law enforcement officers and members of various news media in a long line leading to the local high school, where a highly anticipated town hall meeting awaited.
By that point — 12 days after a Norfolk Southern train ran off the tracks on the east side of town, prompting an evacuation and a controlled burn of vinyl chloride, and dispersing a wave of other toxic chemicals into the environment — the 4,700 residents of this village were eager to translate that nightmare into plain English. Is their drinking water safe? Will their pets be all right? Will this disaster have any long-term health impacts on the population?
These are straightforward questions with complicated answers.
The residents of East Palestine and nearby communities are trying to square their lived experience — the evacuation, the sight of the toxic plume, the cloying odor drifting through the village — with public health officials’ insistence that the air and water is safe and contaminant-free as of now. Put simply, these families do not know how to plan for the near- or long-term future, and, in an already tenuous economic environment in rural Ohio, that level of uncertainty is a major problem. Even the basic question of who to trust is up for debate. In the midst of this calamity, who’s at the wheel?
Outside the high school, as the crowd shuffled forward an inch at a time, East Palestine residents Cory and Dawn White traded stories with others in line. They were coming to this meeting in search of clarity about a lot of things — about the water quality, yes, but also about the nuances of soil sampling and about the recovery plans for the city. But, like anyone in attendance at the town hall that night could attest, nailing down an answer to most any question — health-related, environment-related, finance-related, you name it — is no easy task.
“That’s the scary part,” Cory said. “Nobody knows what’s going to happen, and no one can give you answers.”
This is best story I’ve seen on the East Palestine disaster. Read the rest at the Grid link.
Did you hear about the Republican operative with longtime ties to Ron and Rand Paul who was convicted of funneling Russian money to Trump in 2016? Russ Choma at Mother Jones: GOP Operative Sentenced to 18 Months for Funneling Russian Money to Trump Campaign.
On Friday, a federal judge in Washington, DC sentenced a veteran GOP operative to 18 months in prison for funneling $25,000 from a Russian businessman to Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign.
Jesse Benton, a longtime aide to both Ron and Rand Paul, was convicted in November on six related charges. The court found that he and another GOP operative accepted $100,000 from Roman Vasilenko, a St. Petersburg-based influencer who wanted photos with Trump to display on his social media accounts. Benton kept most of the money for himself but donated $25,000 to the Republican National Committee as part of a plan to secure two tickets to a fundraising event for Trump in Philadelphia. At the event, Vasilenko was allowed to sit close to Trump at a roundtable discussion and later took a photo with him. Foreign nationals, like Vasilenko, are not allowed to donate to US political campaigns or committees, and it is illegal to make a donation on behalf of someone else.
Benton, who is married to Ron Paul’s grandaughter, was previously convicted in 2016of a scheme to pay an Iowa state senator to switch his endorsement from Michele Bachmann to Ron Paul ahead of the state’s 2012 republican presidential caucus. In that case, Benton, after pleading that he had reformed and had a family to support, was sentenced to home confinement. Just six days later, the Trump fundraiser at which Vasilenko met Trump took place. A few weeks after that, Benton was caught in an undercover sting orchestrated by the British newspaper The Telegraph, whose reporters posed as representatives of a Chinese businessman who wanted to donate $2 million to Trump’s campaign. Benton told them he could arrange it. He apparently violated the terms of his home confinement in the Iowa case to meet with the undercover reporters.
Read more at Mother Jones.
https://twitter.com/srvbluesrock/status/1624161574289039360?s=20
One more before I wrap this up. House Republicans have another George Santos on their hands.
During far-right Republican Andy Ogles’ successful campaign for Congress last fall, he advertised himself as a successful entrepreneur and real estate investor, a tax policy expert, and the former leader of an international nonprofit rescuing sex trafficking victims.
But the freshman member from Tennessee embellished many aspects of his resume, according to interviews, business and property records, tax filings, and local newspaper archives. Ogles’ inflations invite comparisons to his Republican congressional colleague, Rep. George Santos of New York, who has seen nearly every aspect of his past called into question.
Ogles’ business experience seems to be limited to owning two restaurants, a short-lived travel agency, and becoming licensed as an insurance agent. His real estate investments appear limited to a few adjacent parcels of land, including one he lives on, in rural Tennessee, and he reported no rental income from his properties Insider found.
Ogles claimed he studied economics and international relations, and worked at two right-wing think tanks that focus on economic policy. But his educational credentials and supposed policy expertise were thrown into question this week by Nashville’s NewsChannel5, which reported Ogles had studied languages in college – not economics or international policy, as he had claimed.
Ogles’ supposed experience rescuing sex trafficking victims helped propel him into national headlines in his first week in Congress. But his representations about that work are vastly overstated, according to public records and a former manager at an anti-trafficking nonprofit where Ogles worked.
There’s more at the link. Also check out these local stories:
NewsChannel5 Nashville: Congressman Andy Ogles, graduate of respected Vanderbilt, Dartmouth business schools? Not really.
NewsChannel5 Nashville: Businessman, economist, cop, international sex crimes expert? The stories of Congressman Andy Ogles.
Sorry there wasn’t a lot of good news today. What stories are you following?
Robert Delaunay, Rythme, Joie de Vivre, 1933
We always knew that the Trump Presidency displayed narcisism combined with a grab for personal power and money. It seems we’re getting close to some indictments. Investigative journalists Murray Waas has an exclusive up today on his substack. “EXCLUSIVE: FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP LEAKED CLASSIFIED RUSSIA PAPERS TO CONSERVATIVE JOURNALIST. Trump’s leak of the records raises new questions regarding his handling of classified information as the special counsel’s probe of Trump’s removal of classified documents to Mar-a-Lago intensifies.”
In the closing days of his presidency— as President Donald J. Trump was preparing to declassify and make public almost a thousand pages of highly classified records pertaining to the FBI investigation into Russia’s covert interference in the 2016 presidential election to help elect him, and defeat Hillary Clinton — he turned to conservative columnist John Solomon for help.
On Jan 14, 2021, less than a week before Trump was to leave office, Solomon excitedly declared on his podcast, “I am here to tell you that, just a little while ago, President Trump authorized the declassification of all remaining FBI documents of the Russia probe to be made public before he leaves office.” Solomon said that the records consisted of a “foot and a half stack tall of documents from the FBI and Justice Department,” which, Solomon promised, would, in turn, contain “bombshell after bombshell.”
Towards that end, on Jan. 19, 2021, the day before he was to leave office, Trump signed a presidential order declaring that the Russia papers were to “be declassified to the maximum extent possible.” The order was signed about 7 p.m., ET.
On the very next day, though, just as Joe Biden was about to take his oath of office, Trump’s then-chief of staff, Mark Meadows, wrote a memo apparently clarifying Trump’s order, indicating that the documents would not be made public anytime soon. Meadows wrote in his Jan. 20, 2021 memo that the White House was “returning the bulk of the… documents to the Department of Justice” because of concerns by the department that their release would violate the Privacy Act.
Despite this, Solomon was able to post a story on his own website, Just the News, on the night of Jan. 19, 2021, and then another the following week, sourced from some of these very same records.
In the second of those stories, Solomon confirmed that they were based on documents that “were kept from the American people for four years until President Trump declassified them on his final day in office last week.” Solomon highlighted the fact that the documents were exclusive to him: “They were obtained by Just the News.” He also posted the actual documents online to accompany both stories.
Circular forms, Sun and Moon, Robert DeLaunay
Waas spoke to Solomon and described that conversation after this excerpt. You can read more at the link. In other news regarding the classified documents, Reuters has this headline. “Exclusive: Trump lawyer hires own attorney in classified documents probe.” Andrew Goudsward has the lede.
A lawyer for former President Donald Trump retained an attorney to represent himself as prosecutors step up their inquiry into the handling of sensitive documents at Trump’s Florida residence, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters on Thursday.
Evan Corcoran, who has represented Trump in interactions with the government over presidential records taken to his Mar-a-Lago resort, has turned to Michael Levy, a prominent white-collar lawyer in Washington, according to people familiar with the matter.
Levy was hired by Corcoran’s law firm, Silverman Thompson Slutkin & White, to represent Corcoran in the probe, according to one of the people.
Levy, a principal at the Washington law firm Ellerman Enzinna Levy, declined to comment.
Corcoran has appeared before a grand jury in connection with U.S. Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into classified documents taken to Mar-a-Lago following Trump’s term in office and possible attempts to obstruct that probe. He appeared before the grand jury in early January, according to a person familiar with his appearance.
One of Biden’s big deals has been the speed at which he’s gotten federal judges slotted into vacancies. Many suspect Ron Klein had much to do with this since he once served the Judicial Committe in the Senate in the role of getting that done. The Republicans have decided that’s an issue and are blaming Senator Lindsey Graham. This is from The Hill by Alexander Bolton. “Lindsey Graham in GOP hot seat for speedy judicial nominees.” The Republicans have worked hard at placing unqualified judges into slots where they will follow a political and philosophical approach to the law.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is coming under pressure from conservatives on his panel and outside Congress to slow down consideration of President Biden’s judicial nominees.
Graham has voted for more of Biden’s nominees than any other Republican on the Judiciary Committee, something that is coming under scrutiny from conservatives after Democrats this week celebrated the 100th successful confirmation of a Biden judicial nominee.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), a member of the Judiciary Committee, said Republicans shouldn’t have let Democrats confirm so many Biden nominees to the federal courts when the Senate was evenly split during Biden’s first two years in office.
“The truth is the leadership squandered a 50-50 Senate. They could have at the committee level made a major push to vote together and to stop at least the circuit court nominees. Every single one of them would have required a discharge petition. We didn’t do that,” Hawley told The Hill.
“There was no concerted effort made whatsoever,” he added. “Say what you want about [Democratic Judiciary Committee Chairman] Dick Durbin [D-Ill.] but he has not taken his eye off the ball. He’s had help from Republicans.”
Senate Democrats are well ahead of the pace set by Republicans when they controlled the Senate during former President Trump’s term in office. Senate Republicans didn’t confirm the 100th judge appointed by Trump until May of 2019 — about three months later than when Biden hit the milestone.
“I think it’s a good time near the beginning of this Congress to go back and look at the last Congress and compare that to what happened in the previous administration and figure out if we’re needlessly accelerating the pace at which they’re being confirmed,” said Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), another member of the Judiciary Committee.
“Needlessly?” Whatever happened to a right to speedy trial and the data that shows the dockets all have more cases than they can handle now. Once again, Republicans just serve their donor overloards and obstruct good governance and outcomes. While we’re after Lady Lindsey, let’s think on this a moment.
This is from Forbes under it’s subheadline Billionaires. ” Zach Everson has he byline. “Lindsey Graham Raised $158,000 For His Legal Expenses, Mostly From Other Senators.” Well, isn’t THAT special?
In November, after three months of legal challenges, the Supreme Court ordered Graham to testify before an Atlanta-area grand jury investigating former President Donald Trump’s attempt to subvert the 2020 presidential election. Graham complied.
If the senator hopes to offset all of his legal bills, his expense fund is going to need to raise even more cash. On Nov. 30, Graham’s campaign paid $268,000 to Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP, a law firm based in South Carolina. Graham’s legal expense fund paid the firm an additional $40,000 the following week.
Robert Castellani, the CEO of North American Rescue, chipped in $10,000. His company provides medical products for the military and has won $100 million in federal contracts since 2001.
Leadership PACs for seven current Republicans maxed out with $10,000 contributions to their colleague, according to disclosures filed with the secretary of the senate and the Federal Election Commission. Republicans John Barasso (Wyoming), John Boozman (Arkansas), Michael Crapo (Idaho), Steve Daines (Montana), John Hoeven (North Dakota), James Lankford (Oklahoma) and Tim Scott (South Carolina) all routed money in Graham’s direction. The PAC of former Sen. Richard Shelby (Alabama) pitched in $10,000 as well. Shelley Moore Capito (West Virginia), Kevin Cramer (North Dakota) and Chuck Grassley (Iowa) sent several thousand dollars apiece. Some of these donations were reported previously by The Daily Beast and Raw Story.
Nicholas A. Mastroianni II also contributed $10,000. He is the chairperson of U.S. Immigration Fund, which helps foreign investors obtain permanent U.S. residency. To participate in the program, Mastroianni’s company needs to be approved by the Citizenship and Immigration Services.
A spokesperson for Graham, Kevin Bishop, declined to provide details about discussions Graham may have had with the donors about their businesses. “Senator Graham complies with all regulations and laws as required,” the spokesperson said.
Only one donor to Graham’s defense fund responded to Forbes’ inquiries. “I’ve worked with the senator for over a decade,” said Wallace Cheves, owner of Sky Boat Gaming, a casino developer. “I was happy to chip in.”
Relief, Rhythms (1932) – Robert Delaunay
Let’s go back to my obsession with the balloons. According to The Wall Street Journal, as summarized by Raw Story, “
Defense officials during the Trump administration were aware of other spy balloon incursions into U.S. territory — but never reported these incidents to the White House and never reached a definitive conclusion that they originated from China, according to a Friday report by the Wall Street Journal.
“Following the shootdown earlier this month of a Chinese high-altitude balloon, the Biden administration revealed these past incidents, but didn’t say where they had flown, and added that they likely went undetected by the previous administration,” reported Vivian Salama. “Now it appears some intelligence officials at the Pentagon were aware of the incidents and harbored concerns that they were related to China, believing Beijing was using them to test radar-jamming systems over sensitive U.S. military sites. The data collected about the Trump-era incidents was limited to a basic assessment and therefore wasn’t shared more broadly within the government at the time.”
The balloons in question were detected over Navy facilities in Coronado, California; Norfolk, Virginia; and Guam.
Despite some officials’ suspicions of Chinese involvement, intelligence assessments “never got to be assertive” about that conclusion, and major officials like Defense Secretary Mark Esper say they do not recall being briefed on the matter.
Soleil, tour, aéroplane (Sun, Tower, Airplane), 1913, Robert DeLaunay
So, why does Trump still have a bank account in China? There’s another Raw Story article today that has me in stiches. “
Michael Cohen spoke to MSNBC on Thursday about someone calling himself a “private investigator” trying to deliver a package to him. Ultimately, the truth came out that he was a process server trying to hand over a subpoena.
Detailing the scene to Nicolle Wallace, Cohen explained that the documents made it look like it was a lawsuit from The People of New York (Letitia James) vs. a list of several people.
“And it’s a subpoena. It’s a subpoena to testify,” Cohen revealed. “And I’m saying to myself, my God, this is so weird. Why would the attorney general ask for me or why would they subpoena me? All you have to do is call and ask me and I’d be happy to come in and provide any testimony that they want. Well, after reading the document the first few pages I realized it’s actually not from the attorney general but rather it’s from Trump’s lawyers. It’s like five or six of them are subpoenaing me to come in a couple of weeks and provide a deposition.”
He confessed he had no idea why, and that there were several law firms listed, everyone from the typical names like Alina Habba and more.
“It’s one of the dumbest moves I could possibly imagine they would want,” said Cohen. “Clearly, the information I’m providing is predicated on documentation, you know, on documentary evidence, and as much as they think they’re going to bully me, it’s not going to happen. They’re not going to benefit from it. And tomorrow, fortunately, I’m seeing another lawyer in order to determine whether or not I’m going to make a motion to quash the subpoena and basically show Donald the same consideration he showed to the American people.”
The information came after Cohen continued his attacks on the Southern District of New York for the Justice Department’s attempts to silence him from revealing details about Trump. He’s been engaged in an ongoing effort to obtain the documents around the ordeal, as well as the Bureau of Prisons, attempting to prevent him from publishing a book. Thus far the government has refused to give up the information, even under President Joe Biden’s administration. Cohen is going to court over the request for the information.
Air, Iron, and Water,1937 Robert Delaunay
Sooner or later, someone will deliver us from this meddlesome psychopath. Trump and the cult just won’t go away without some kind of legal or divine intervention. This is from Michael Scherer at the Washington Post. “GOP wants candidates to pledge support for nominee — but some resist. Trump said he won’t commit to supporting the winner if he loses the nomination, and other potential candidates have hedged on the issue.” I wonder what will happen to Ronna if her Uncle decides to run if she’s having such issues now?
Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel is so concerned that party disunity will sink GOP hopes in the 2024 presidential election that she plans to require all candidates on the official primary debate stages to first pledge their support to the party’s eventual nominee.
But many of the likely contenders are pushing back.
Former president Donald Trump said this month that he won’t commit to supporting the winner if he loses the nomination. “It would have to depend on who the nominee was,” he told a conservative radio host. Former Maryland governor Larry Hogan, another potential candidate, recently tweeted that he “won’t commit to supporting” Trump.
Others have settled on more nuanced hedges. New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, who just created a new organization to help him explore a possible campaign, says he will support the eventual nominee, but is certain Trump won’t be that person. Former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson, who has not decided on whether to sign a pledge, has gone so far as to speak with McDaniel about his opposition to it, arguing that Republicans should not be enforcing litmus tests.
It’s rather obvious the various ‘wings’ of the Republican party hate each other and it’s every man for himself. This presidential shit season should be a clusterfuck if there ever was one. Also, its zombie candidates refuse to die.
Politico has this story. “Republican losers look to run again in ’24 — and the party’s at odds over how to stop them.” It just couldn’t happen to a meaner bunch of fascists.
House and Senate Republicans widely acknowledge that bad candidates cost them seats in the 2022 election. They just don’t agree on what to do about it in 2024.
After a midterm cycle that saw underfunded and deeply conservative nominees blow winnable races across the country, the new regime at the National Republican Senatorial Committee is reversing its policy of neutrality and will now selectively intervene to pick winners in open GOP primaries. But in the House, where Republicans are protecting a paper-thin majority, the campaign committee will remain largely hands-off.
The split over strategy comes at a critical juncture for the GOP: Some of the party’s most controversial losers from 2022 are launching campaigns or considering running in 2024. That includes Blake Masters and Kari Lake in Arizona, J.R. Majewski in Ohio and Joe Kent in Washington.
The crop of failed candidates mulling comebacks is causing headaches for party operatives who are desperate to address one of the big problems that plagued them last fall.
Let’s face it. One of our parties isn’t the least bit functional, and that continues to have an impact on our country overall.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
At Dacha, by Isaak Brodsky, socialist realism
BREAKING…Parts of the Georgia special grand jury report were just released. You can read the report here. Just posted stories:
The Washington Post: Parts of Georgia grand jury report on Trump election investigation released.
A Georgia judge released parts of a report produced by an Atlanta-area special grand jury investigating efforts by President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss in Georgia — though the panel’s recommendations on potential charges in that investigation remain secret.
More Jack Smith news from CNN: Special counsel is locked in at least 8 secret court battles in Trump investigations.
Special counsel Jack Smith is locked in at least eight secret court battles that aim to unearth some of the most closely held details about Donald Trump’s actions after the 2020 election and handling of classified material, according to sources and court records reviewed by CNN.
The outcome of these disputes could have far-reaching implications, as they revolve around a 2024 presidential candidate and could lead courts to shape the law around the presidency, separation of powers and attorney-client confidentiality in ways they’ve never done before.
Yet almost all of the proceedings are sealed, and filings and decisions aren’t public….
A key sealed case revealed Wednesday is an attempt to force more answers about direct conversations between Trump and his defense attorney Evan Corcoran, where the Justice Department is arguing the investigation found evidence the conversations may be part of furthering or covering up a crime related to the Mar-a-Lago document boxes.
House of Squam Light, Gloucester, Edward Hopper
About half a dozen cases are still ongoing in court, either before Chief Judge Beryl Howell or in the appeals court above her, the DC Circuit. Most appear to follow the typical arc of miscellaneous cases that arise during grand jury investigations, where prosecutors sometimes use the court to enforce their subpoenas.
More challenges from subpoenaed witnesses – including former Vice President Mike Pence – are expected to be filed in the coming days, likely under seal as well. Pence may raise novel questions about the protections around the vice presidency….
Investigations that implicate government officials often beget sealed court proceedings, because confidential grand jury witnesses become more likely to assert privileges that prompt prosecutors to ask judges to compel more answers, criminal law experts say.
“I think we are in extraordinary times. Part of it is I think President Trump continues to assert these theories long after they’ve been batted away by the court,” Neil Eggleston, a former White House counsel who argued for executive privilege during the Clinton administration and the Whitewater investigation.
The toxic train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, is drawing new attention to the dangers of increasingly long freight trains — part of a series of cost-savings efforts by freight railroads that have drawn scrutiny from the industry’s critics.
The sheer bulk of the 150-car train that went off the rails Feb. 3 is just one factor investigators are expected to consider amid the unfolding ecological disaster near the Ohio-Pennsylvania border, which caused a massive fireball, forced an evacuation and has left a lingering odor, fears of lasting contamination and thousands of dead fish. But union officials, regulators and congressional researchers say the industry’s trend toward ever-growing train lengths is causing a host of safety concerns that regulators need to address.
“The longer the train, the heavier the train, the more wear and tear it puts on the actual rail itself, as well as the equipment,” said Jared Cassity, a legislative director for the country’s largest rail union, SMART-Transportation Division. “We’re seeing more wear and tear. We’re seeing more unintended train separations, which is where the train breaks apart.”
The Ohio derailment is still under investigation by multiple agencies, including the Department of Transportation, the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Transportation Safety Board. The NTSB, an independent agency, has said preliminarily that an overheated wheel bearing on one of the cars is partially the culprit for the derailment.
However, derailments like these typically have multiple points of failure, and the NTSB’s investigation will likely take over a year to complete. Such NTSB probes typically examine any conceivable cause that could have led to a crash, including equipment malfunctions, poor system design, the lack of safety precautions, inadequate training, crew fatigue and myriad other factors.
The Guardian: What do we know about the Ohio train derailment and toxic chemical leak?
On the night of Friday 3 February, at least 50 out of 150 train cars of a train heading from Conway, Pennsylvania, to Madison, Illinois, derailed. The train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, a town of about 5,000 residents along the Ohio and Pennsylvania border. A huge fire that spanned the length of the derailed cars erupted. No injuries or deaths were reported.
Marshall’s House, Edward Hopper
Residents within a one-mile radius of the derailment were evacuated as officials noted that over a dozen cars carrying vinyl chloride, a carcinogenic chemical, were involved in the derailment and could have been exposed to the fire.
On Monday 6 February, officials enacted a mandatory evacuation, threatening to arrest residents who refused to evacuate, as fear of an explosion rose. Governor Mike DeWine told residents that leaving was “a matter of life and death”. Crews ended up releasing toxic chemicals from five derailed tanker cars to prevent an explosion. Small holes were made into the train cars, whose chemicals were released into pits that were lit on fire. Pictures of the chemical release showed huge clouds of black smoke billowing into the sky over homes.
Evacuated residents, who were staying at shelters and schools, were given the clear to return to their homes on Wednesday 8 February as officials deemed air and water samples safe for residents.
On the chemicals that were released:
The most concerning chemical being carried by the derailed train was vinyl chloride, which is used to make polyvinyl chloride, or PVC, a hard resin used in plastic products. Vinyl chloride is colorless and highly flammable. It has been linked to a rare form of liver cancer, as well as other types of cancer like leukemia and lung cancer. Short-term exposure effects include dizziness and drowsiness, while high exposure can lead to hospitalization and death. Another chemical on board was butyl acrylate, also used in plastic production.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) later released information that showed three previously unreported chemicals were also released upon the derailment: ethylhexyl acrylate, isobutylene and ethylene glycol monobutyl ether. Exposure to the chemicals can cause shortness of breath, burning in the skin and eyes, coughing, headaches and nausea, among other symptoms.
In total, the EPA has reported five chemicals that were contained in rail cars that were “derailed, breached and/or on fire”, in a letter the agency wrote to Norfolk Southern.
There’s more at the link, if you’re interested.
This story on Elon Musk’s giant ego is a couple of days old, but I wanted post it, just in case you haven’t heard about it. Platformer: Yes, Elon Musk created a special system for showing you all his tweets first.
At 2:36 on Monday morning, James Musk sent an urgent message to Twitter engineers.
“We are debugging an issue with engagement across the platform,” wrote Musk, a cousin of the Twitter CEO, tagging “@here” in Slack to ensure that anyone online would see it. “Any people who can make dashboards and write software please can you help solve this problem. This is high urgency. If you are willing to help out please thumbs up this post.”
By Andrew Wyeth
When bleary-eyed engineers began to log on to their laptops, the nature of the emergency became clear: Elon Musk’s tweet about the Super Bowl got less engagement than President Joe Biden’s.
Biden’s tweet, in which he said he would be supporting his wife in rooting for the Philadelphia Eagles, generated nearly 29 million impressions. Musk, who also tweeted his support for the Eagles, generated a little more than 9.1 million impressions before deleting the tweet in apparent frustration.
In the wake of those losses — the Eagles to the Kansas City Chiefs, and Musk to the president of the United States — Twitter’s CEO flew his private jet back to the Bay Area on Sunday night to demand answers from his team.
Within a day, the consequences of that meeting would reverberate around the world, as Twitter users opened the app to find that Musk’s posts overwhelmed their ranked timeline. This was no accident, Platformer can confirm: after Musk threatened to fire his remaining engineers, they built a system designed to ensure that Musk — and Musk alone — benefits from previously unheard-of promotion of his tweets to the entire user base.
A bit more:
In recent weeks, Musk has been obsessed with the amount of engagement his posts are receiving. Last week, Platformer broke the news that he fired one of two remaining principal engineers at the company after the engineer told him that views on his tweets are declining in part because interest in Musk has declined in general.
His deputies told the rest of the engineering team this weekend that if the engagement issue wasn’t “fixed,” they would all lose their jobs as well.
Late Sunday night, Musk addressed his team in-person. Roughly 80 people were pulled in to work on the project, which had quickly become priority number one at the company. Employees worked through the night investigating various hypotheses about why Musk’s tweets weren’t reaching as many people as he thought they should and testing out possible solutions.
There’s more at the link, believe it or not. I never thought anyone could be more of a malignant narcissist than Donald Trump, but Musk might actually surpass him.
I’ll end there. Please share your thoughts on these stories, and post links to stories you have found interesting.
I’m not a big fan of this holiday, but if you celebrate it, I hope you enjoy the day. Meanwhile, today’s news is the same old same old unloving mess.
I mostly ignored the news yesterday; I’m trying to relax because I’m still recovering from my cold. Finally, at 10PM, I turned on MSNBC only to learn about another school shooting, this time at Michigan State University.
CBS News: 3 students killed, 5 critically wounded in shooting at Michigan State University, authorities say.
Three Michigan State University students were killed and five others were critically wounded in a shooting at the university Monday night, authorities said. The gunman was later found dead in Lansing of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said.
Law enforcement officials at the university identified the shooter as Anthony Dwayne McRae, a 43-year-old man with no obvious affiliation to the school. McRae was neither a current nor former student or faculty member at Michigan State, said Chris Rozman, the university’s interim deputy chief of police and public safety.
The suspect was previously sentenced to 18 months in state prison on a weapons charge, according to the Michigan Department of Corrections. Arrest records show he was convicted and ultimately sentenced in November 2019 for possessing a loaded firearm inside a vehicle, which is illegal in Michigan without a concealed carry license. He was discharged in May 2021.
Michigan State Police initially confirmed the death toll on Monday night, announcing that five people were hospitalized with injuries and noting that all were in critical condition. Four of the five students transported to Sparrow Hospital in Lansing underwent surgeries for their injuries overnight, a hospital representative said. The fifth student was immediately admitted to the medical center’s critical care unit, and all five remained in critical condition on Tuesday morning, according to the representative.
Police located McRae’s body in the city of Lansing at around 11:30 p.m. Monday, Rozman said, thanking a caller whose tip led authorities to the suspect.
The shooter left a note that reportedly made a threat against a school in New Jersey. CBS Philadelphia: NJ school closure linked to Michigan State University shooting.
EWING TOWNSHIP, N.J. (CBS) — Ewing Township police say all public and private schools are closed Tuesday due to a threat that was connected to the suspect involved in the mass shooting at Michigan State University.
An investigation into the East Lansing, Michigan shooting led to a possible connection between 43-year-old Anthony McRae and Ewing, New Jersey.
Police say a note was found in McRae’s pocket “indicating a threat to two Ewing Public Schools.”
All five Ewing Township public schools closed Tuesday morning “out of an abundance of caution,” according to police.
There are additional officers from Ewing police and other agencies at public and private schools.
They plan to open the schools again tomorrow.
It’s difficult to know how to react to these shootings that have become almost routine in the U.S. The GOP and the gun lobby are wholly responsible for these tragic events. I can’t imagine why any young person today would vote for a Republican. Here’s a reaction from Detroit Free Press columnist (and mother of a young boy) Nancy Kaffer.
In seven hours, I have to tell my son.
He went to bed at 9 p.m., because he’s 12 and it’s a school night, before I saw the news alerts rolling in: A shooting on Michigan State University’s campus. The shooter still on the loose. One person, reportedly, slain; five at Sparrow Hospital. It’s 11:30 p.m., and I’m watching the news. The dead now number three, and there’s a blurry picture of the shooter on my screen. I hope at least they catch the guy before my son wakes up. At least then I can say it’s over.
I can’t not tell him, not anymore. He has a phone. He has a laptop, required for school. He has friends with phones and laptops and older siblings. I had to tell him about Oxford, in November of 2021; he listened, quietly — he is not, by nature, quiet — and asked: “Are you sending me to school tomorrow?”
His first active shooter drill was kindergarten. I didn’t know. They didn’t have active shooter drills when I was his age. There had been a substitute teacher, clearly as blindsided by the drill as any of her young charges. Administrators used a code name to communicate the actions of the fictional shooter. It made the drill seem real. He came home that day earnestly explaining to me that his class had to hide in the bathroom, because a bad guy had been in the school….
This isn’t the first time; it won’t be the last. I know what I’m supposed to say. I’m meant to be empathetic but matter of fact, to validate his feelings, but make him feel safe. I’m told to watch him for signs of trauma. I have to keep my cool. If I lose it, he will, too.
The children at MSU are older than he is, six or 10 or 12 years; a gulf to him, to me, the blink of an eye. Wasn’t it just yesterday that he took his first steps?
I hope you’ll go read the whole column. What a time to be a child–or a parent. How much longer will we tolerate this horrendous, meaningless violence in this country?
Mike Pence plans to fight the subpoena he received from Jack Smith’s January 6 Grand Jury.
From Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein:
Mike Pence is preparing to resist a grand jury subpoena for testimony about former President Donald Trump’s push to overturn the 2020 election, according to two people familiar with the former vice president’s thinking.
Pence’s decision to challenge Special Counsel Jack Smith’s request has little to do with executive privilege, the people said. Rather, Pence is set to argue that his former role as president of the Senate — therefore a member of the legislative branch — shields him from certain Justice Department demands.
Pence allies say he is covered by the constitutional provision that protects congressional officials from legal proceedings related to their work — language known as the “speech or debate” clause. The clause, Pence allies say, legally binds federal prosecutors from compelling Pence to testify about the central components of Smith’s investigation. If Pence testifies, they say, it could jeopardize the separation of powers that the Constitution seeks to safeguard.
“He thinks that the ‘speech or debate’ clause is a core protection for Article I, for the legislature,” said one of the two people familiar with Pence’s thinking, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss his legal strategy. “He feels it really goes to the heart of some separation of powers issues. He feels duty-bound to maintain that protection, even if it means litigating it.”
Pence’s planned argument comes after an FBI search that followed his attorney’s voluntary report of classified material in his possession last month — drawing him into a thicket of document-handling drama that’s also ensnared Trump and President Joe Biden. While Pence aides say he’s taking this position to defend a separation of powers principle, it will allow him to avoid being seen as cooperating with a probe that is politically damaging to Trump, who remains the leading figure in the Republican Party.
Pence is preparing to launch a presidential campaign against his onetime boss. Aides expect the former vice president to address the subpoena — and his plans to respond it — during a visit to Iowa on Wednesday.
Pence is as delusional as Trump if he thinks he has any chance to win the Republican nomination, much less become president. But he’s not the only delusional Republican hopeful.
From the Washington Post article:
Nikki Haley, who served as U.N. ambassador and governor of South Carolina, announced Tuesday that she is running for president, becoming thefirst major rival to officially challenge Donald Trump for the GOP nomination in 2024.
To say that Haley has “shifted” her position on Trump is a vast understatement. She has been all over the map. She’s a wishy-washy flip flopper. I can’t imagine the GOP base will support her for the nomination.
A tiny bit of news about the mysterious balloons:
Richard Luscombe at The Guardian: ‘Significant’ debris from China spy balloon retrieved, says US military.
The US military has recovered “significant debris” from a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon shot down this month, the Pentagon has said, after the White House claimed China had been operating a high-altitude balloon program spying on the US and its allies for many years.
The US Northern Command said in a statement: “Crews have been able to recover significant debris from the site, including all of the priority sensor and electronics pieces identified as well as large sections of the structure.”
The balloon, shot down off the coast of South Carolina on 4 February, was the first of a series of mysterious objects shot down by the US military over an eight-day period in North American airspace.
However, China’s surveillance program, according to John Kirby, the US national security council spokesperson, dated back to at least the administration of Donald Trump, which he said was oblivious to it….
“We detected it, we tracked it. And we have been carefully studying to learn as much as we can. We know that these PRC [People’s Republic of China] surveillance balloons have crossed over dozens of countries on multiple continents around the world, including some of our closest allies and partners.”
There will be an all-senators classified briefing on Capitol Hill on Tuesday morning, the office of the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, said, and the White House’s office of national intelligence will brief John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser, on Wednesday, CNN reported.
Separately in Japan, the Fuji News Network reported on Tuesday that Tokyo had concluded that the object that flew over Japanese waters near the south-western region of Kyushu in January last year was mostly likely a Chinese spy balloon.
I’m going to end with two opinion pieces, one on the GOP and Social Security and the other on the GOP book-banning craze.
Krugman begins by noting the Republicans’ noisy fake outrage when Biden accused them of wanting to “sunset” Social Security and Medicare during his State of the Union speech. Of course “sunset” was exactly the word Rick Scott used in his plan for a future Republican majority in the Senate. Fortunately, they didn’t get one in 2022.
But, of course, many Republicans do want to eviscerate these programs. To believe otherwise requires both willful naïveté and amnesia about 40 years of political history.
First of all, if Republicans had absolutely no desire to make major cuts to America’s main social insurance programs, why would they sunset them — and thus create the risk that they wouldn’t be renewed? As Biden might say, c’mon, man.
And then there’s that historical record. Two things have been true ever since 1980. First, Republicans have tried to make deep cuts to Social Security and Medicare every time they thought there might be a political window of opportunity. Second, on each occasion they’ve done exactly what they’re doing now: claiming that Democrats are engaged in smear tactics when they describe G.O.P. plans using exactly the same words Republicans themselves used.
So, about that history. It has been widely forgotten, but soon after taking office Ronald Reagan proposed major cuts to Social Security. But he backed down in the face of a political backlash, leading analysts at the Cato Institute to call for a “Leninist” strategy — their word — creating a coalition ready to exploit a future crisis if and when one arrived.
To that end, Cato created the Project on Social Security Privatization, calling for replacing Social Security with individual accounts — which George W. Bush tried to do in 2005. By then, however, Cato had quietly renamed its project; “privatization” polled badly, and Bush insisted that it was a “trick word” used to “scare people.”
So there’s a history here, and there’s a similar history for Medicare. Many people probably recall that Newt Gingrich shut down the federal government in 1995. I don’t know how many people realize that Gingrich’s key demand was that President Bill Clinton agree to large cuts in Medicare and Medicaid.
After Republicans gained control of the House in 2010, Paul Ryan began pushing for major cuts in spending. One key element was converting Medicare from a system that pays medical bills to a system offering people fixed sums of money to be applied to the purchase of private insurance — that is, vouchers.
Read the rest at the NYT link.
From The Guardian:
A wave of Republican enthusiasm for banning concepts, authors and books is sweeping across the United States. Forty-four states have proposed bans on the teaching of “divisive concepts”, and 18 states have passed them.
Florida’s Stop Woke Act bans the teaching of eight categories of concepts, including concepts that suggest that “a person, by virtue of his or her race, color, sex, or national origin, bears personal responsibility for and must feel guilt, anguish or other forms of psychological distress because of actions, in which the person played no part, committed in the past by other members of the same race, color, national origin, or sex”. Many of the laws also target Nikole Hannah-Jones’s influential 1619 Project.
These laws have already started to take effect. Administrators and teachers have been forced out of their positions on the suspicion of violating these laws, and what has started as a trickle may soon become a flood.
In January, Florida’s board of education banned AP African American studies, on the grounds that it included concepts forbidden by Governor Ron DeSantis’s law, including critical race theory and intersectionality, as well as authors such as Kimberlé Crenshaw, bell hooks, Roderick Ferguson, Angela Davis and Ta-Nehisi Coates. The College Board chose to remove these authors and subjects from its curriculum, claiming, as it turns out dubiously, that it did so independently of Florida’s pressure.
These laws have been represented by many as a “culture war”. This framing is a dangerous falsification of reality. A culture war is a conflict of values between different groups. In a diverse, pluralistic democracy, one should expect frequent conflicts. Yet laws criminalizing educators’ speech are no such thing – unlike a culture war, the GOP’s recent turn has no place in a democracy.
What are the consequences of these laws?
The concepts these laws centrally target include addressing structural racism, intersectionality and critical race theory….
The laws are manifestly incoherent. The failure to teach about structural racism will make Black children born into poverty feel that their parents and grandparents are responsible for their own impoverished position relative to white children, and so will make Black children feel “anguish or other forms of psychological distress” because of “actions … committed in the past by other members of the same race”. The “anguish” and “psychological distress” these laws forbid are only anguish felt by the dominant racial group, white Americans.
In other national contexts, everyone would clearly recognize the problematic nature of laws of this sort. Germany’s teaching of its Nazi past creates clear anguish and guilt in German children (and perhaps for this reason, Germany is the world’s most stable liberal democracy). If the German far right passed laws forbidding schools from teaching about the sins of Nazism, on the grounds that such teaching does in fact quite obviously cause anguish and guilt in German children, the world would not stand for it for one moment. Even Israel’s far-right government strenuously objected when Poland drafted a law that would make it illegal to suggest that Poland had any responsibility for Nazi atrocities on its soil. Why isn’t there greater outcry when such laws are passed to protect the innocence of white Americans?
It is frequently claimed by proponents of such laws that banning discussion of structural racism and intersectionality is freeing schools of indoctrination. And yet indoctrination rarely takes place by allowing the free flow of ideas. Indoctrination instead rather takes places by banning ideas. Celebrating the banning of authors and concepts as “freedom from indoctrination” is as Orwellian as politics gets.
Head over to The Guardian to read the whole piece.
That’s it for me today. What are your thoughts? What other stories are you following?
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The Sky Dancing banner headline uses a snippet from a work by artist Tashi Mannox called 'Rainbow Study'. The work is described as a" study of typical Tibetan rainbow clouds, that feature in Thanka painting, temple decoration and silk brocades". dakinikat was immediately drawn to the image when trying to find stylized Tibetan Clouds to represent Sky Dancing. It is probably because Tashi's practice is similar to her own. His updated take on the clouds that fill the collection of traditional thankas is quite special.
You can find his work at his website by clicking on his logo below. He is also a calligraphy artist that uses important vajrayana syllables. We encourage you to visit his on line studio.
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