Posted: November 30, 2021 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: Afternoon Reads, Media, The Media SUCKS | Tags: Chris Cuomo, CNN, Covid omicron variant, Donald Trump, January 6 insurrection, Joe Biden, South Africa, Willard Hotel command center |
Good Afternoon!!
Once again, there isn’t a lot of good news out there to talk about. The media is still “freaking out” about the Covid omicron variant, and we still don’t actually know much about it. Trump and his goons are still threatening U.S. democracy, and the DOJ appears to be doing nothing to stop them. Finally, in another media issue: CNN’s top talking head, Chris Cuomo needs to go, but the network is still dithering.
From Jennifer Rubin at The Washington Post:
The media freaked out during Thanksgiving weekend over the discovery of the omicron variant. The New York Stock Exchange dropped 900 points. Both were irrational, exaggerated responses based on little information.
The World Health Organization on Friday put out a balanced statement, advising, “This variant has a large number of mutations, some of which are concerning. Preliminary evidence suggests an increased risk of reinfection with this variant, as compared to other [variants of concern].” The WHO promised to keep member countries updated about this “detrimental change in COVID-19 epidemiology.” That was it.
Columbia Journalism Review recounted with a hint of exasperation:
Despite the massive uncertainty, the world’s media instantly swelled with content: “What we know about the Omicron variant”; “The Omicron Variant: We Still Know Almost Nothing”; “Opinion | The Omicron Variant Is Creating a Lot of Anxiety,” and so on and so on. Over the weekend, a debate took shape, among experts and journalists, as to whether all the coverage was too much. David Dowdy, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University, accused fellow scientists of shamefully overselling fears about Omicron despite the paucity of hard data on the variant; Erin Biba, a freelance science journalist, tweeted that it is “completely and utterly exhausting” when “doomsday headlines and uninformed reporters create mass hysteria before we even have any details or information.”
Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, and Anthony S. Fauci, President Biden’s top coronavirus adviser, patiently explained in TV interviews over the weekend that we really did not know a lot about the variant. It would take a couple of weeks, they said, to answer questions about its severity and ability to spread. The WHO on Sunday also explained that we did not know much about the variant’s transmissibility, severity and the degree of protection afforded by existing vaccines.
Such nuance and caution were shoved aside. The cable TV news, mainstream news headlines and social media devolved into wild speculation and near-hysteria. Nations “scrambled” and “panicked,” we were told. The variant “stoked fear,” others relayed. Breathless reporting announced each new country in which omicron appeared.
It now looks like the omicron variant didn’t originate in South Africa. NBC News: Omicron COVID variant was in Europe before South African scientists detected and flagged it to the world.
Dutch health authorities announced on Tuesday that they found the new Omicron variant of the coronavirus in cases dating back as long as 11 days, indicating that it was already spreading in western Europe before the first cases were identified in southern Africa. The RIVM health institute said it found Omicron in samples dating from November 19 and 23.
Those findings predate the positive cases found among passengers who came from South Africa last Friday and were tested at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport.
“It is not yet clear whether the people concerned [in the earlier cases] have also been to southern Africa,” the RIVM said, adding that the individuals had been informed of their Omicron infections and that local health services had started contact tracing.
“In the coming period, various studies will be conducted into the distribution of the Omicron variant in the Netherlands,” the institute said, noting that it would also re-examine more samples from previous COVID test results.
In any case, travel restrictions aren’t likely to keep the variant out of the U.S. On the other hand, according to the doctor who identified omicron, the people she saw who were infected had very mild symptoms.
The South African doctor who first identified the omicron variant that is spreading in the country and abroad has described the symptoms as she observed them in her patients, stating that the strain is so far producing “very, very mild” effects in them.
Dr Angelique Coetzee told BBC News that she had first noticed the symptoms in a young, male patient around the age of 30 whom she normally knew to be very healthy. He was “extremely tired” as well as having “body aches and pains with a bit of a headache,” a “scratchy” rather than sore throat, and no cough or loss of taste or smell, she said. The doctor was speaking about her experience of a small group of patients, and not making general comments about how all patients will experience it.
Coetzee tested the man for covid-19 and found him to be positive, then tested his family and found them all to have the virus, despite showing only “very, very mild symptoms,” she said. For the rest of the day, people kept presenting at her surgery with similar symptoms, and all tested positive. Noticing that the symptoms seemed to differ from the delta variant, which had hitherto been the most prevalent form of covid globally, she alerted the country’s vaccines committee, of which she is a member. They announced their resultant discovery of the omicron variant a few days later.
Perhaps reassuringly for those who are worrying about this new development, Coetzee noted that none of the cases she knew of were serious. “What we are seeing clinically in South Africa, and remember that I’m at the epicenter, that’s where I’m practicing, is extremely mild…We haven’t admitted anyone [to hospital]. I spoke to other colleagues of mine: The same picture,” she told the BBC.
Obviously, that could change, but it’s not time to panic yet.
The latest on Trump’s coup attempt at The Guardian: Trump called aides hours before Capitol riot to discuss how to stop Biden victory.
Hours before the deadly attack on the US Capitol this year, Donald Trump made several calls from the White House to top lieutenants at the Willard hotel in Washington and talked about ways to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election win from taking place on 6 January.
The former president first told the lieutenants his vice-president, Mike Pence, was reluctant to go along with the plan to commandeer his largely ceremonial role at the joint session of Congress in a way that would allow Trump to retain the presidency for a second term.
But as Trump relayed to them the situation with Pence, he pressed his lieutenants about how to stop Biden’s certification from taking place on 6 January, and delay the certification process to get alternate slates of electors for Trump sent to Congress.
The former president’s remarks came as part of strategy discussions he had from the White House with the lieutenants at the Willard – a team led by Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Boris Epshteyn and Trump strategist Steve Bannon – about delaying the certification.
Multiple sources, speaking to the Guardian on the condition of anonymity, described Trump’s involvement in the effort to subvert the results of the 2020 election.
Trump’s remarks reveal a direct line from the White House and the command center at the Willard. The conversations also show Trump’s thoughts appear to be in line with the motivations of the pro-Trump mob that carried out the Capitol attack and halted Biden’s certification, until it was later ratified by Congress.
The former president’s call to the Willard hotel about stopping Biden’s certification is increasingly a central focus of the House select committee’s investigation into the Capitol attack, as it raises the specter of a possible connection between Trump and the insurrection.
Trump also called the “command center” at the Willard multiple times on January 5.
Trump’s call to the lieutenants came a day after Eastman, a late addition to the Trump legal team, outlined at a 4 January meeting at the White House how he thought Pence could usurp his role in order to stop Biden’s certification from happening at the joint session.
At the meeting, which was held in the Oval Office and attended by Trump, Pence, Pence’s chief of staff, Marc Short, and his legal counsel, Greg Jacob, Eastman presented a memo that detailed how Pence could insert himself into the certification and delay the process.
The memo outlined several ways for Pence to commandeer his role at the joint session, including throwing the election to the House, or adjourning the session to give states time to send slates of electors for Trump on the basis of election fraud – Eastman’s preference.
The then acting attorney general, Jeff Rosen, and his predecessor, Bill Barr, who had both been appointed by Trump, had already determined there was no evidence of fraud sufficient to change the outcome of the 2020 election.
There’s a court hearing going on today about Trump’s attempts to exert executive privilege over his communications about the planned coup when he was “president.” From the CNN article:
A federal appeals court posed tough questions for lawyers for former President Donald Trump on Tuesday, as Trump attempts to convince the court that he should be able to keep records from his presidency from the House select committee that’s investigating the January 6 US Capitol riot.
“This all boils down to who decides. Who decides when it is in the best interest of the United States to disclose presidential records? Is it the current occupant of the White House or the former?” said Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals.
The arguments are likely to be an uphill battle for the former President. The Biden administration and the House are aligned against him in wanting transparency about communications in the West Wing as Trump sought to overturn the 2020 election result and his supporters raided the Capitol. Trump lost his first round in court in the case, more quickly and resoundingly than his losses when he tried to claim broad protections from investigations while he was President.
Yet by raising major, unsettled questions about the power of former presidents to control information from their time in office, the case appears to be on a path to the Supreme Court.
Read more at the link.
Finally, CNN must fire Chris Cuomo. That link goes an Atlantic piece by David A. Graham. Yesterday, The New York Times published a shocking story on how Cuomo tried to help his brother Andrew escape accountability for his treatment of women: Chris Cuomo Played Outsize Role in Ex-Gov. Cuomo’s Defense.
Thousands of pages of new evidence and sworn testimony released on Monday show the extent to which former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo relied on a group of allies, including his younger brother, the CNN host Chris Cuomo, to strategize how to deflect and survive a cascade of sexual harassment charges that eventually engulfed him.
Beginning last December with the first public accusation by a former aide, Lindsey Boylan, the records lay out in unvarnished detail how the tight-knit group of advisers discussed a series of increasingly drastic steps to manipulate the press, discredit his accusers and retain a grip on power that became less and less tenable.
After debating the legality of the move, they agreed to pass Ms. Boylan’s personnel file to reporters, portraying her as politically motivated and unhinged. They sought — and failed — to rally dozens of former female aides and supporters to pen an op-ed defending him.
Chris Cuomo pressed to take on a greater role in crafting his brother’s defense, including phoning into strategy calls and using his media contacts to keep tabs on reporters pursuing stories about the governor. At one point, he even ran down a secondhand tip that another woman accusing the governor of unwanted advances at a wedding was lying. (She was not.)
“You need to trust me,” Chris Cuomo pleaded with Melissa DeRosa, the governor’s secretary, at one point in March, arguing that she should rely on him and other outside advisers like the political consultant Lis Smith and the pollster Jefrey Pollock.
He added: “We are making mistakes we can’t afford.”
Yet Cuomo appeared in his usual time slot last night.
An even more pointed headline from CNBC: CNN host Chris Cuomo used his media sources to find out info on brother Andrew’s accusers, records show.
CNN host Chris Cuomo used his sources in the media world to seek information on women who accused his brother Andrew Cuomo, then the governor of New York, of sexual harassment, according to documents released Monday by the New York Attorney General’s Office.
While Chris Cuomo has previously acknowledged advising his brother and his team on the response to the scandals, the records show that his role in helping the then-governor was much larger and more intimate than previously known.
Chris Cuomo was actively in touch with Melissa DeRosa, who was the then-governor’s top aide, about incoming media reports that detailed alleged sexual harassment by Andrew Cuomo, according to exhibits from the Attorney General’s probe and a transcript of his interview with the state’s investigators. He also lobbied to help the governor’s office as it sought to weather the storm of accusations, and he dictated statements for the then-governor to use.
“Please let me help with the prep,” Chris Cuomo said to DeRosa in one message in early March. Then, three days after the New York Times reported in March about how Andrew Cuomo attempted to kiss a woman, Anna Ruch, in an unwanted advance at a wedding, Chris Cuomo texted DeRosa: “I have a lead on the wedding girl.”
CNN says they are “conducting a thorough review of the documents.” Frankly, it’s difficult to understand why CNN kept Cuomo on after the initial revelations. If they don’t get rid of him now, they will lose all credibility as a news organization.
There are plenty of other stories out there. Which ones have caught your interest?
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Posted: November 27, 2021 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: just because |
Good Afternoon!!
Black Cat by Russian artist Tatiana Gorshunova
I wanted to try to find some good news to post today, but there just isn’t much of it out there. I guess it’s sort good news that a Republican associated with Mitch McConnell has criticized Rep.Loren Boebert for her grotesque attack on Rep. Ilian Omar. Raw Story: ‘Absolute garbage rhetoric’: Mitch McConnell adviser hammers Lauren Boebert on CNN.
On CNN Friday, former Mitch McConnell adviser Scott Jennings slammed Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) for her comments joking that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) was a suicide bomber.
“Scott, was it just another day at the office and they got these folks in the far right in certain parts of the caucus that they just can’t control?” asked anchor Jim Acosta.
“Senator McConnell serves in the Senate,” said Jennings. “I guarantee you, I know what he’s thinking. It’s a garbage comment from a garbage politics. I’m as anti-Squad as the next [Republican], but there’s plenty of ways to debate these folks without stooping to this garbage rhetoric. I noted, by the way, that Boebert has been forced to apologize. I assume that didn’t happen in a vacuum, but she’s of course committed the ultimate sin, which is the people she’s being performative for here would sRaway you never should apologize.”
On the other hand, no Republicans in the House have done anything to rein Boebert in. Raw Story: ‘Absolutely spineless’: CNN panel thrashes GOP leadership’s silence on Lauren Boebert’s ‘MAGA open mic night.’
A CNN panel on Friday thrashed House Republican leadership for remaining silent about Rep. Lauren Boebert’s (R-CO) bigoted attacks on Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN).
Host Jim Acosta started off by asking former Republican Congressman Charlie Dent what he made of House Republicans’ reaction to what he described as Boebert’s “MAGA open mic night” in which she made disparaged Omar by likening her to a suicide bomber.
Dent said that the way the party has mishandled Boebert has been the same way it’s mishandled Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who was stripped of her committee assignments over her remarks about executing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).
“Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Paul Gosar more recently, when they make these statements, it’s important for the Republican leaders to crack down, to deal with it internally,” he said. “Republicans should have taken her off the committees. They should not have let that go to the House floor, as an example, but they didn’t.”
By Simerenya
I know there are plenty of racists here in Massachusetts, but still when I read a story like this, I feel ashamed. MassLive: Disabled Vietnam veteran Eugene Brice finds service to country doesn’t shield him from racism.
Eugene L. Brice survived the Vietnam War, the 1968 Tet Offensive and 29 years in the U.S. Army, but he is struggling to emotionally survive a recent trip to the grocery store.
“It was pretty dramatic. It’s destroyed me,” said Brice, a member of the Springfield chapter of the National Association of Black Veterans and a man who wheels around in a motorized scooter, volunteering 50% of his time to help veterans.
On Oct. 30, Brice found that duty, honor and service are not shields from racism. Weeks later, he is struggling to get his post-traumatic stress disorder and a related speech impediment back under control — and reminding himself that more than 50 years of service to the country should not be ruined by one hellish moment in a parking lot.
“I pulled into the handicapped spot at the Big Y in East Longmeadow. I do my own shopping and for my wife,” Brice explained. “A woman pulled beside me and crossed halfway over the lines. I asked her to move so I could use my ramp to get out of the car.”
The woman did move, but too little to provide Brice room to get out of his car. When he asked her again, he said she told him, “Mind your own business.”
Brice told her the ability to get out of the car was his business. At first, she ignored him, he recounted.
What happened next still brings Brice to tears — and provides a graphic, stomach-churning example of why people of color insist that at any turn and at the most innocent moments, they may encounter hatred and racism.
“The woman said, ‘N—-, just keep on moving.’ She said that several times,” Brice said.
The woman also threatened physical harm, he said, prompting him to back away for fear she might be armed.
“I was sitting in the scooter, and I was very vulnerable. I was scared and afraid if I said something, it might escalate,” Brice said.
Brice said that was the first time he had ever been called the “n” word. This is an elderly man who was disabled in service to the country and has spent his life working to help other disabled veterans. I wish there was a way to identify that woman and make her understand the damage her vicious racist attack caused.
By Tokuhiro Kawai
Dakinikat wrote about the latest coronavirus variant yesterday. It may not be as dangerous as some are portraying it. The New York Times: New Virus Variant Stokes Concern but Vaccines Still Likely to Work.
The W.H.O. said the new version, named Omicron, carries a number of genetic mutations that may allow it to spread quickly, perhaps even among the vaccinated.
Independent scientists agreed that Omicron warranted urgent attention, but also pointed out that it would take more research to determine the extent of the threat. Although some variants of concern, like Delta, have lived up to initial worries, others have had a limited impact.
“Epidemiologists are trying to say, ‘Easy, tiger,’” said William Hanage, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “This could be bad. This could be very bad. But we don’t know enough to roll that tape forward.”
Dr. Hanage and other researchers said that vaccines will most likely protect against Omicron, but further studies are needed to determine how much of the shots’ effectiveness may be reduced.
As the coronavirus replicates inside people, new mutations constantly arise. Most provide the virus with no new advantage. When worrisome mutations do emerge, the World Health Organization uses Greek letters to name the variants. The first “variant of concern,” Alpha, appeared in Britain in late 2020, soon followed by Beta in South Africa.
Omicron first came to light in Botswana, where researchers at the Botswana Harvard H.I.V. Reference Laboratory in Gaborone sequenced the genes of coronaviruses from positive test samples. They found some samples sharing about 50 mutations not found in such a combination before. So far, six people have tested positive for Omicron in Botswana, according to an international database of variants.
Reuters: Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna expect data on shot’s protection against new COVID-19 variant soon.
BioNTech SE said on Friday it expects more data on a worrying new coronavirus variant detected in South Africa within two weeks to help determine whether its vaccine produced with partner Pfizer Inc would have to be reworked.
By Dee Nickerson
Pfizer and BioNTech said that if necessary they expect to be able to ship a new vaccine tailored to the emerging variant in approximately 100 days.
“We understand the concern of experts and have immediately initiated investigations on variant B.1.1.529,” BioNTech said in a statement when asked to comment.
“We expect more data from the laboratory tests in two weeks at the latest. These data will provide more information about whether B.1.1.529 could be an escape variant that may require an adjustment of our vaccine if the variant spreads globally,” it added.
Moderna Inc said in a statement it is working to advance a booster candidate tailored to the new variant and has also been testing a higher dose of its existing booster and to study other booster candidates designed to protect against multiple variants.
“A booster dose of an authorized vaccine represents the only currently available strategy for boosting waning immunity,” Moderna said in the statement.
Escape variants are those that elude the targeted immune response brought about by vaccination. Pfizer and BioNTech would be able to redesign their shot within six weeks and ship initial batches within 100 days, BioNTech added.
Meanwhile, the anti-vaxers are getting crazier by the day. Tom Porter at Business Insider: Conspiracy theorists are pushing toxic bleach and other harmful treatments they claim can ‘de-vaccinate’ people.
In a video hosted on Bitchute, a platform known for its extremist content, a man applies electrodes, a strong magnet and “55 percent Montana whiskey” in the hope of removing a COVID-19 vaccine from a US military veteran.
In another, a gory variant of the “cupping” technique to draw blood from an injection site, a man makes extra incisions with a razor to extract a significant amount. (Insider is not linking to the footage due to its graphic nature.)
Neither method had any hope of working. It is impossible to undo vaccination, a process which works by teaching the body to fight infection itself, and which doesn’t rely on substances that can be isolated or removed.
By Karl Kahler
But, with millions of people now vaccinated against COVID-19, some anti-vaccination advocates are pivoting to a new narrative aimed at those who took vaccines and regret it.
They claim it is indeed possible to “de-vaccinate” people, recommending a host of methods which range from quaint to potentially dangerous.
The “de-vaccination” movement is spreading in Telegram groups with thousands of members, as well as other fringe platforms used by extremists, which Insider monitored while researching the trend.
Users repost videos, like the ones referred to above, beaming them to large audiences not reflected in view counts on the sites where they are hosted.
Advocates have also established a presence on mainstream platforms that purport to restrict such activity, such as Facebook and TikTok, experts told Insider.
Click on the link to read the rest.
Jonathan Karl, author of the new Trump book “Betrayal” is offered a warning to fellow journalists in an interview with Deadline. A summary from HuffPost: ABC’s Jonathan Karl Issues Stark Warning About Covering Donald Trump 2024.
If Donald Trump eventually decides to run for president again in 2024, ABC News’ Jonathan Karl warned it may be “the greatest challenge ever facing campaign reporters.”
Karl posed multiple questions on the problems of reporting on a possible third Trump presidential campaign in a lengthy interview with Deadline published Friday.
Such as, “How do you cover a candidate who is effectively anti-democratic?”
And, “How do you cover a candidate who is … also running against the very democratic system that makes all of this possible?”
Karl, the author of “Betrayal: The Final Act Of The Trump Show,” said reporting on Trump would be “tremendously challenging” because “now, more than ever” he “is just saying things that are not true, that are designed to misinform, that are designed to erode credibility and belief in our electoral system.”
Cherubs and Cat, by Tokuhiro Kawai
According to The Washington Post, Trump made more than 30,000 false or misleading claims during his presidency alone….
How to tackle Trump’s debates, speeches and interviews were “really difficult questions,” acknowledged Karl, because he’s “been demonstrated to be a candidate that is trying to destroy the very system that makes this election possible.”
“It is a very difficult, precarious situation, and I don’t know how it is going to play out, to be honest,” he added.
You can read the full interview by Ted Johnson at Yahoo News: Q&A: Jonathan Karl On ‘Betrayal’ And Why Campaign Reporters Face Their “Greatest Challenge” If Donald Trump Runs Again.
This story by Ron Elving at NPR offers some hope: Trump, tough issues and personal rivalries test the GOP’s reputation for unity.
Presenting a united front has been an even greater imperative for the GOP when Democrats were in the White House and especially when Democrats also had majorities in Congress.
That may be changing. Heightened tensions within the GOP have been increasingly visible in recent weeks, driven by the still-divisive personality of former President Donald Trump — but also by issues such as vaccines and mandates and by the prospect of big Republican gains in the elections of 2022 and 2024.
This week’s focus has been on Republican governors declaring their independence not only from the former president but from present party leaders in Washington.
In some cases, the governors are reacting to Trump’s meddling in their home state politics. Here we have Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, who is term-limited but has backed a candidate to succeed him. Trump has endorsed someone else, adding that Hogan himself is “toxic” and “a Republican in name only [who] has been terrible for our country and against the America First Movement.”
Karl Kahler, Austrian, 1856-1906
Asked about Trump taking sides, Hogan replied: “I’d prefer endorsements from people who didn’t lose Maryland by 33 points,” referring to Trump’s blowout loss to Democrat Joe Biden in the state last year.
This particular feud is not new. Hogan has been critical of Trump for years and condemned him for inciting the crowd that marched on the Capitol on Jan. 6.
But eyebrows were raised over the weekend when a big name Republican, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, criticized Trump and his claque in Congress. Sununu was especially disturbed at the so-called “MAGA Squad,” the hardcore Trump acolytes who have tried to ostracize their in-party House colleagues who voted for the Senate’s bipartisan infrastructure bill earlier this month — or who voted to impeach Trump earlier this year.
“I think they’ve got their priorities screwed up,” Sununu said on CNN Sunday. “That kind of social media mob mentality that’s built up in this country … culturally, those tactics are ruining America.”
I’m not sure I buy it, but it’s a long story; check out the whole thing at the link.
That’s all I have for you today. I wish I could have found more happy news. What stories are you following?
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Posted: November 25, 2021 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: just because |
Thanksgiving, by Doris Lee
Happy Thanksgiving!!
I hope you all have a very pleasant day with family and friends or alone if that’s what you prefer. I have spent many Thanksgiving Days by myself and have been grateful to be able to do so. I usually get really stressed out over “the holidays,” and I guess that’s beginning for me today. I’ve been stressing for a couple of hours about getting this post up, and I’ve finally decided to just post some links to interesting articles.
I’ll just say that I’m very grateful today for my sobriety. I got sober on May 10, 1982, and it turned my life around. After a few years, I decided I didn’t want to work as a secretary any longer and took a big risk by leaving my job at M.I.T. without any definite plans for the future.
I went into therapy and dealt with some difficult issues. In time, I was able to return to college and finish my undergraduate degree. I’ve never been happier than when I went back to school and immersed myself in the joys of learning. I loved it so much that I decided to apply to graduate school. I was accepted to a PhD program at Boston University and eventually got a doctoral degree in psychology.
Now I’m retired and struggling with some health issues, but basically I’m quite happy with my life. I still enjoy writing for this blog even though we aren’t as active as we once were. I still feel connected to the people I’ve interacted with here over the years. Writing these posts gives a bit of structure to my days.
I’m grateful to have a nice apartment in subsided senior housing and I’m so grateful that now I can spend so much time reading–something I’ve loved doing ever since I was a young child. I’m grateful to have some family nearby–my brother and sister-in-law and my two nephews. Those boys gave a purpose to my life and I will always be grateful that I was able to spend a lot of time with them and watch them develop into fine young men.
There’s much more that I’m grateful for in my life, and I trace it all back to that long ago day when had a true “spiritual awakening” (as they call it in A.A.) and I “just knew” that I would never drink again. At the time, no one who knew me believed it, but I was right.
Happy Thanksgiving, Sky Dancers! I love you all.
By Lilla Cabot Perry
Now for some interesting reads:
Arthur C. Brooks at The Atlantic: How to Be Thankful When You Don’t Feel Thankful.
Liza Featherstone at The New Republic: America, Rediscover Thanksgiving’s Radical Past. “Gratitude” has become a vapid buzzword, but being grateful can be a revolutionary act. Just look to Lincoln and FDR.
Mediaite: Molly Jong-Fast Had to Call the FBI Due to Death Threats After Joking About Reporting Relatives to FBI on Thanksgiving.
The New York Times: Three Men Are Found Guilty of Murdering Ahmaud Arbery.
Adam Serwer at The Atlantic: The System Only Worked Because It Was Pushed. The most surprising aspect of the trial of Ahmaud Arbery’s killers is not the verdict, but the fact that it happened at all.
Raw Story: Georgia prosecutor booked into jail for mishandling Ahmaud Arbery case.
Guest essay by Dante Stewart at The New York Times: I Was With Family. Suddenly, a White Man Appeared with a Gun.
The Washington Post: How the events unfolded at Waukesha parade.
The Daily Mail: EXCLUSIVE: Waukesha massacre suspect Darrell Brooks was convicted for threatening to bomb Nugget Casino in Nevada and is STILL wanted after failing to appear in court.
CBS46: Man who drove though Christmas parade has arrest record in Georgia
The New York Times: Trump Investigation Enters Crucial Phase as Prosecutor’s Term Nears End.
Dan Vergano at Buzzfeed News: Murder Is A Leading Cause Of Death In Pregnancy In The US. [Warning: Vergano refers to “pregnant people” in the first paragraph]
Axios: Scoop: Centrist Dems sink Biden’s nominee for top bank regulator.
The Washington Post: Rep. Greene introduces bill to award Congress’s highest honor to Kyle Rittenhouse, who fatally shot two men.
Rolling Stone: ‘Bitter,’ ‘Angry,’ ‘Enraged’: Reality Winner Blasts the Intercept After 4 Years in Jail.
I wish the news were more cheerful, but that’s the world we’re living in. I’m still choosing to have an attitude of gratitude today.
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Posted: November 23, 2021 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: morning reads | Tags: abortion, Bob Dylan, CIA, Darrell Brooks Jr., Jefferson Morley, JFK assassination, National Archives and Records Administration, Roe v Wade, SCOTUS, Waukesha parade |
Le Petit Dejeuner, by Jacque Denier
Good Morning!!
Yesterday was the 58th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. After all this time, the CIA is still concealing their records of that awful day. Joe Biden went along with their excuses last month. This is from Jefferson Morley, a journalist who has published three books about the CIA and the JFK assassination and has another coming out next year on the CIA and Watergate.
Politico: What Biden is keeping secret in the JFK files.
President Joe Biden has once again delayed the public release of thousands of government secrets that might shed light on the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
“Temporary continued postponement is necessary to protect against identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or the conduct of foreign relations that is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in immediate disclosure,” Biden wrote in a presidential memorandum late Friday.
He also said that the National Archives and Records Administration, the custodian of the records, needs more time to conduct a declassification review due to delays caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
The decision, which follows a delay ordered by President Donald Trump in 2017, means scholars and the public will have to wait even longer to see what remains buried in government archives about one of the greatest political mysteries of the 20th century. And the review process for the remaining documents means Biden can hold the release further if the CIA or other agencies can convince him they reveal sensitive sources or methods.
Fifty-eight years later? As Biden likes to say, “C’mon man!”
Public opinion polls have long indicated most Americans do not believe the official conclusion by the Warren Commission that the assassination was the work of a single gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald, a former Marine who once defected to the Soviet Union and who was shot to death by a nightclub owner Jack Ruby while in police custody.
A special House committee in 1978 concluded “on the basis of the evidence available to it, that President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy.”
By Antonella Lucarella Masetti
But longtime researchers almost uniformly agree that what is still being shielded from public view won’t blow open the case.
“Do I believe the CIA has a file that shows former CIA Director Allen Dulles presided over the assassination? No. But I’m afraid there are people who will believe things like that no matter what is in the files,” said David Kaiser, a former history professor at the Naval War College and author of “The Road to Dallas.”
His book argued that Kennedy’s murder cannot be fully understood without also studying two major U.S. intelligence and law enforcement campaigns of the era: Attorney General Robert Kennedy’s war on organized crime and the CIA’s failed efforts to kill communist dictator Fidel Castro in Cuba (with the Mafia’s help).
Still, Kaiser and other experts believe national security agencies are still hiding information that shows how officials actively stonewalled a full accounting by Congress and the courts and might illuminate shadowy spy world figures who could have been involved in a plot to kill the president.
Yesterday, Morley posted this interesting piece at Literary Hub: What Bob Dylan Does—Or Doesn’t—Know About the Assassination of JFK. Jefferson Morley Revisits the Nobel Laureate’s Recent No. 1, “Murder Most Foul.”
Also yesterday, Michael Bechloss posted Jack Kennedy’s final words from a speech he intended to give on the night of November 22, 1963. These words are relevant to our situation today.
We now have more information about the man who drove through a parade In Waukesha, Wisconsin on Sunday, leaving 5 dead so far and many more injured. He had been let out of jail on a very low bond after a “domestic violence” incident in which he drove over the mother of his child in a gas station, where he followed her after they had a fight. Police say he “intentionally” drove into the parade.
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: Darrell Brooks is the suspect in the Waukesha Christmas Parade incident. The Milwaukee man has been charged with crimes 10 times since 1999.
The driver who plowed through a Christmas parade in downtown Waukesha, killing five people and injuring nearly 50, did so intentionally and is expected to face first-degree homicide counts and other charges, police said Monday.
The suspect, Darrell Brooks Jr., 39, recently had been released from custody in a strikingly similar case, in which he was accused of driving over a woman during a domestic dispute, sending her to the hospital and leaving tire marks on her pant leg.
The Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office, which is prosecuting that case, said Monday it was launching an internal review of a prosecutor’s “inappropriately low” $1,000 bail recommendation. The bail amount was signed off on by a court commissioner.
Woman Reading, Henri Matisse
The horrific scene Sunday evening tore at the heart of the Waukesha community and rippled outward from the Norman Rockwell-style parade that has been a six-decade tradition. At least 18 children were among the injured, 10 of whom remained in Children’s Wisconsin’s intensive care unit….
Investigators learned Brooks was involved in a “domestic disturbance” before he drove into the parade route, the chief said. There was a report of a knife being involved, but police were unable to confirm that as of Monday afternoon, he added.
Thompson said a police chase did not lead to the driver’s actions but Thompson said he would not be providing more details about the suspect’s motivations at this point. The chief said there was no sign the event was an act of domestic terrorism. Waukesha prosecutors expect to file formal charges Tuesday.
Courts never seem to take “domestic” violence seriously, and so often that attitude leads to death and destruction. Read about the victims of the tragic incident in this Journal Sentinel article: What we know so far about the five victims of the Waukesha Christmas Parade.
On December 1 the Supreme Court will hear arguments about the Mississippi abortion law that could end Roe v. Wade.
William Saletan at Slate: Republicans Will Be Sorry If the Supreme Court Overturns Roe.
Next week, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case that could overturn Roe v. Wade. The suit, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, involves a Mississippi law that bans most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, about two months earlier than states can currently prohibit abortions under Roe. The statute’s defenders have suggested that a 15-week ban would enjoy wide public backing. In an amicus brief, for instance, 44 senators and 184 members of the House assured the justices that “two-thirds or more of Americans support limiting abortion after twelve weeks’ gestation.” And some scholars have argued in op-eds that a “moderate ruling,” upholding the Mississippi law and setting a 15-week limit, could establish a “new equilibrium.”
Don’t count on it. Many Americans would support a law like Mississippi’s, but they’re not a majority. If the court uses this case to overturn Roe, it’s likely to trigger a voter backlash next year.
The Mississippi case has been overshadowed in recent months by Texas’ law banning abortion after six weeks….most Americans think a six-week limit is too severe. They reject it even when they’re told that by six-to-eight weeks “a fetal heartbeat is detectable.” [….]
Woman Reading, by Rada Vucinic
Saletan cites multiple polls to show that the majority of Americans would not support a ban on abortion.
….In Economist/YouGov polls, the Texas law loses by about 13 points, but respondents are almost evenly divided on the Mississippi law, with support and opposition in the low 40s. In A Yahoo! News/YouGov poll, respondents opposed the Texas law, 50 percent to 33 percent, but they tilted in favor of the Mississippi law, 39 percent to 33 percent. A Marquette University Law School poll found almost the same gap, with respondents in favor of upholding a 15-week ban, 40 percent to 34 percent.
If you look closely at these numbers, however, you’ll see something missing. While more than 50 percent of Americans say abortion should be illegal at three months, only about 40 percent endorse Mississippi’s ban at 15 weeks—which is later than three months. A crucial segment of the public, about 10 percent to 15 percent, flinches when the question stops being hypothetical and gets real. Why?
The simplest explanation is that many Americans are uncomfortable with banning abortion, even when they are personally opposed to it. They don’t like the procedure, but they don’t like the government getting involved, either. Two weeks ago, in a Washington Post-ABC News poll, 75 percent of voters said abortion decisions should be “left to the woman and her doctor” rather than “regulated by law.” In a Data for Progress survey, 66 percent of likely voters chose a pro-choice statement—“The government should not interfere in personal matters like reproductive rights”—while 26 percent chose the pro-life alternative: “The government should be able to make decisions about reproductive rights, especially when it involves protecting the sanctity of human life.” In a Navigator poll, 33 percent of voters identified themselves as pro-life, but 60 percent identified themselves as pro-choice.
If abortion is banned, writes Saletan, there will be a serious backlash and the “political energy” on the issue “will shift to the left.”
Could we really be headed back to the way it was when I was a young woman? Reuters: In Supreme Court abortion case, the past could be the future.
OXFORD, Miss., Nov 23 (Reuters) – Just months before she was set to start law school in the summer of 1973, Barbara Phillips was shocked to learn she was pregnant.
Then 24, she wanted an abortion. The U.S. Supreme Court had legalized abortion nationwide months earlier with its landmark Roe v. Wade ruling recognizing a woman’s constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy. But abortions were not legally available at the time in Mississippi, where she lived in the small town of Port Gibson.
Phillips, a Black woman enmeshed in the civil rights movement, could feel her dream of becoming a lawyer slipping away.
Kenne Gregoire, Book
“It was devastating. I was desperate,” Phillips said, sitting on the patio of her cozy one-story house in Oxford, a college town about 160 miles (260 km) north of Jackson, Mississippi’s capital.
At the time of the Roe ruling, 46 of the 50 U.S. states had some sort of criminal prohibitions on abortion. Access often was limited to wealthy and well-connected women, who tended to be white.
With a feminist group’s help, Phillips located a doctor in New York willing to provide an abortion. New York before Roe was the only state that let out-of-state women obtain abortions. She flew there for the procedure.
Now 72, Phillips does not regret her abortion. She went on to attend Northwestern law school in Chicago and realize her goal of becoming a civil rights lawyer, with a long career. Years later, she had a son when she felt the time was right.
“I was determined to decide for myself what I wanted to do with my life and my body,” Phillips said.
More interesting stories to check out:
The New York Times: Four Black Men Wrongly Charged With Rape Are Exonerated 72 Years Later.
Politico: Rep. Louie Gohmert announces he’s running for Texas AG.
CNN: New January 6 committee subpoenas issued for 5 Trump allies including Roger Stone and Alex Jones.
Margaret Carlson at The Daily Beast: John Kennedy Went From a Democrat to the GOP’s Discount Joe McCarthy.
Robert Mann at The Washington Post: Opinion: Our Foghorn Leghorn Republican senator little resembles his former Democratic self, but in Louisiana we know the type.
CNN: Private SCOTUS files that could reveal what happened in Bush v. Gore remain locked up.
Science Alert.com: The Most Common Pain Relief Drug in The World Induces Risky Behavior, Study Finds. [Tylenol? Really?]
Have a nice Tuesday, Sky Dancers!!
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Posted: November 20, 2021 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: Afternoon Reads | Tags: angry white men, Black Lives Matter, Build Back Better Act, caturday, Kyle Rittenhouse |
Good Afternoon!!
Lucky day, by Ksenia Yarovaya
Unfortunately, the House passage of the Build Back Better Act was overshadowed yesterday by the not guilty verdict in the Kyle Rittenhouse case. But if you’d like to know more about what is in the massive spending bill, The Washington Post has an excellent article about that: A guide to all the ways the House spending bill would affect America. Climate, taxes, immigration and other major provisions in the spending bill, explained.
House Democrats on Friday morning passed a more than $2 trillion bill to overhaul the country’s health care, climate, education and tax laws, moving beyond months of disputes between liberals and moderates that have stalled President Biden’s economic agenda.
The legislation builds off a framework that Biden unveiled to party lawmakers and includes new spending to enhance child care, provide free prekindergarten, combat climate change and advance a slew of tax benefits that chiefly aid low-income Americans.
But the bill omits many of Democrats’ top priorities, a reflection of the party’s difficult work to scale back a package once valued at $3.5 trillion. It now moves to the Senate, where it may face further cuts.
What follows is a guide to the legislation, one of the most significant overhauls of domestic policy in generations.
Head over to the WaPo to read summaries of all the important ways the bill could change the country.
On the Rittenhouse verdict:
Christina Maxouris at CNN: Here’s what legal experts say helped acquit Kyle Rittenhouse.
After more than 25 hours of deliberations, a 12-person jury acquitted Kyle Rittenhouse of all five charges he faced after fatally shooting two people and wounding a third during protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last summer.…
And while the jury’s decision drew harsh criticism from the victims’ loved ones, legal experts say they were not surprised by the verdict….
Among the trial’s most key moments was the testimony from Rittenhouse, who told the court he acted in self-defense when he shot Rosenbaum, who he said threatened him earlier, chased him, threw a bag at him and lunged for his gun. At one point, 18-year-old Rittenhouse broke down in tears while on the stand.
Cat’s Pause, by Bonnie Mason
“If I would have let Mr. Rosenbaum take my firearm from me, he would have used it and killed me with it and probably killed more people,” he testified.
Rittenhouse referred to the other people he shot at as part of a “mob” chasing him, telling the court Huber came at him, struck him with a skateboard, and grabbed his gun. Rittenhouse shot him once in the chest, killing him. Finally, he said he saw Grosskreutz lunge at him and point a pistol at his head, so Rittenhouse shot him, he testified.
“Number one, you humanize him… More important, number two, he explained his uses of force,” CNN legal analyst Joey Jackson said.
Rittenhouse’s testimony gave jurors the ability to hear what he thought at the time and whether he believed he was in danger — a claim the prosecution, ultimately failed to undermine, former federal prosecutor Elie Honig said.
“They (prosecutors) pointed out some sort of minor inconsistencies and things he said on the night of, and said later, but nothing that undermines sort of the core defense argument, which was, he was attacked,” Honig told CNN’s Alisyn Camerota on Friday. “Every time he shot, he was attacked.”
“The prosecution did not make enough of a dent in Kyle Rittenhouse,” Honig added.
More experts:
What the trial came down to, according to civil rights attorney Charles F. Coleman Jr. were two competing narratives: one of Rittenhouse being a victim who was attacked, and one of being a vigilante who provoked the violence.
“The jury bought the narrative of Kyle Rittenhouse being a victim, they thought that his self-defense claim was a lot stronger than the prosecution’s provocation claim,” he said.
Wisconsin law allows the use of deadly force only if “necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm.” And because Rittenhouse’s attorneys claimed self-defense, state law meant the burden fell on prosecutors to disprove Rittenhouse was acting in self-defense beyond a reasonable doubt.
And it was an uphill battle to climb from the start, because of the facts in this case, experts said.
“(Prosecutors) weren’t able to show that his response to each of these men, to each of these sets of threats was unreasonable,” criminal defense attorney Sara Azari told CNN’s Pamela Brown.
Pierre Loti with a Cat, by Henri Rousseau, 1892
Another take on the verdict from Elie Mystal at The Nation: Kyle Rittenhouse Has Gotten Away With Murder—as Predicted.
Kyle Rittenhouse, who was 17 years old when he shot three people, killing two, officially got away with murder. A jury of his white peers ruled that Rittenhouse acted in self-defense when he illegally acquired a gun, traveled across state lines, lied about his status as a medic, pointed his gun at protesters, and then used it to kill others.
The verdict is not surprising, if you are familiar with how the criminal justice system works for white people. Wisconsin Judge Bruce Schroeder, who presided over the Rittenhouse trial, consistently made rulings in the best interest of the white gunman. He refused to punish Rittenhouse for violating the terms of his bail; excluded evidence of Rittenhouse’s behavior before and after the shooting that spoke to his intent and lack of remorse; allowed the defense to mischaracterize the people Rittenhouse killed as “rioters”; yelled at prosecutors in front of the jury; dismissed an illegal gun charge against the gunman; and had the jury clap for one of Rittenhouse’s expert witnesses.
Others might want to argue about why Schroeder was biased toward the defendant (I think the judge’s MAGA ringtones and off-color jokes tell you all you need to know about why he was sympathetic to a white gunman who shot up anti–police violence protesters at the height of the Black Lives Matter movement). But that he was biased toward Rittenhouse was obvious to those watching the trial without blinders.
Still, a sympathetic judge and a predominately white jury are just standard gifts the criminal justice system gives to white boys accused of criminal violence. Rittenhouse also enjoyed hero status among white supremacists and Republicans as well as favorable media coverage from Fox News and The New York Times.
No doubt, some people will express shock at the verdict over the next few days. But Rittenhouse’s freedom is not a “miscarriage” of justice—it is our white justice system working as intended. This system is designed to free people like Rittenhouse: white vigilantes who kill to maintain the best interests of whiteness. It doesn’t always work (I still believe the people who lynched Ahmaud Arbery will be found guilty). But it works often enough (see George Zimmerman) that it gives comfort and confidence to any white person who clearly realizes that they might do an obviously illegal and violent thing (like, say, storm the US Capitol) and either get away with it completely or receive a light punishment.
Morris Hirshfield, Angora Cat, 1937-39
I wholeheartedly agree with Mystal. As he writes in the article, a black 17-year-old who did what Rittenhouse did would suffer a completely different fate. Frankly, that black teenager would most likely be killed by police before he had a chance to stand trial.
John Blake at CNN: There’s nothing more frightening in America today than an angry White man.
The specter of the angry Black man has been evoked in politics and popular culture to convince White folks that a big, bad Black man is coming to get them and their daughters.
I’ve seen viral videos of innocent Black men losing their lives because of this stereotype. I’ve watched White people lock their car doors or clutch their purses when men who look like me approach. I’ve been racially profiled….
But as I’ve watched three separate trials about White male violence unfold across the US these past few weeks — the Kyle Rittenhouse trial, the Ahmaud Arbery death trial and the civil case against organizers of the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville — I’ve come to a sobering conclusion:
There is nothing more frightening in America today than an angry White man.
It’s not the “radical Islamic terrorist” that I fear the most. Nor is it the brown immigrant or the fiery Black Lives Matter protester, or whatever the latest bogeyman is that some politician tells me I should dread.
It’s encountering an armed White man in public who has been inspired by the White men on trial in these three cases.
Of course it’s not all White men, Blake writes.
But recent events have convinced me it’s time to put another character on trial: A vision of White masculinity that allows some White men to feel as if they “can rule and brutalize without consequence.”
Reynaldo Fonseca, Figure and Cats, 2003
This angry White man has been a major character throughout US history. He gave the country slavery, the slaughter of Native Americans, and Jim Crow laws. His anger also helped fuel the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol.
It’s this angry White man — not the Black or brown man you see approaching on the street at night — who poses the most dangerous threat to democracy in America.
That’s a sweeping claim. But these trials represent something bigger than questions of individual guilt or innocence. They offer a disturbing vision of the future, and a choice about what kind of country we want to live in.
Read the rest at CNN.
Mediaite: House Judiciary Chair Nadler Calls for DOJ Review of Kyle Rittenhouse Case After ‘Heartbreaking Verdict’: Sets ‘Dangerous Precedent.’
Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D- NY) called for the Justice Department to review the Kyle Rittenhouse case after a jury found Rittenhouse not guilty on all charges Friday.
Nadler, the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, reacted to the verdict by remarking, “This heartbreaking verdict is a miscarriage of justice and sets a dangerous precedent which justifies federal review by DOJ. Justice cannot tolerate armed persons crossing state lines looking for trouble while people engage in First Amendment-protected protest.”
More stories to check out today:
The New York Times: Discussions of Race Are Notably Absent in Trial of Arbery Murder Suspects.
Politico: Judge faults Trump for Jan. 6 attack.
Buzzfeed News: Top Justice Department Officials Were Told There Were “No Credible Threats” Hours Before The Capitol Riot.
David Corn: The Steele Dossier and Donald Trump’s Betrayal of America.
The New York Times: G.O.P. Is Energized, but ‘Trump Cancel Culture’ Poses a Threat.
The Washington Post: As Biden agenda advances in Congress, White House weighs new offensive on inflation.
The Washington Post: Sinema holds firm in support of the filibuster, imperiling late voting rights push.
Have a great weekend, Sky Dancers!!
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