Posted: March 9, 2021 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: Black farmers, Covid relief bill, Covid vaccines, Donald Trump, GOP Senators stepping down, January 6 insurrection, Joe Biden, Major Biden, Native Americans, stimulus checks, White House portraits |
Good Morning!!
Joe Biden has been POTUS for less than two months, and he has already accomplished so much. A few days ago, he announced that all adults in the U.S. could be vaccinated by the end of May. He has reversed many of Trump’s worst policies. And the massive $1.9 trillion Covid relief bill should pass the House in the next couple of days. Relief checks could start going out before the end of March.
USA Today: President Biden’s COVID-19 stimulus bill is on the brink of becoming law. Here’s where it stands.
The House is expected to pass the bill this week and as early as Tuesday evening. The House Rules Committee must first set the parameters for debate, and then the House must vote to approve the rules of debate.
Once the House approves the rules for debate, lawmakers will first debate the bill and then vote on final passage, which could happen late in the night Tuesday.
Biden said Monday that he would sign the legislation “as soon as I get it.”
The House passed the bill last month, but the Senate made changes that the House will have to approve.
The House first passed the bill at the end of February. The Senate took it up the next week, and it made changes to the bill’s provisions. A key Senate official, the parliamentarian, ruled that a provision increasing the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour could not stay in the final legislation, for example.
The Senate also lowered the unemployment benefit to $300 a week, down from $400 in the first version of the legislation the House passed, but extended it through the beginning of September, and made the first $10,200 of unemployment benefits non-taxable for households making less than $150,000.
The changes mean the House had to pass the bill again. If the House does not make any changes of its own, then the bill can go straight to Biden for his signature.
From Politico:
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and her leadership team, who spent the weekend working the phones with their members, are confident they will have the votes for one of Congress’s largest-ever economic relief bills. They’re set to once again contend with unified GOP opposition that will brand Biden’s rescue package as a Democratic offering ahead of next year’s midterms, when Republicans could recapture the majority by flipping just a handful of seats.
Pelosi shrugged off Republicans’ lack of support for the Covid aid plan,telling reporters that “I feel sad for them” and painting them as “oblivious to the support that this bill has among Republicans across the country.”
More details on what the bill will do:
The Washington Post: Relief bill is most significant legislation for Black farmers since Civil Rights Act, experts say.
A little-known element of President Biden’s massive stimulus relief package would pay billions of dollars to disadvantaged farmers — benefiting Black farmers in a way that some experts say no legislation has since the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Of the $10.4 billion in the American Rescue Plan that will support agriculture, approximately half would go to disadvantaged farmers, according to estimates from the Farm Bureau, an industry organization. About a quarter of disadvantaged farmers are Black. The money would provide debt relief as well as grants, training, education and other forms of assistanceaimed at acquiring land.
While it’s a fraction of the $1.9 trillion bill that passed in the Senate on Saturday, advocates say it still represents a step toward righting a wrong after a century of mistreatment of Black farmers by the government and others. Some say it is a form of reparations for African Americans who have suffered a long history of racial oppression.
“This is the most significant piece of legislation with respect to the arc of Black land ownership in this country,” said Tracy Lloyd McCurty, executive director of the Black Belt Justice Center, which provides legal representation to Black farmers.
Black farmers in America have lost more than 12 million acres of farmland over the past century, mostly since the 1950s, a result of what agricultural experts and advocates for Black farmers say is a combination of systemic racism, biased government policy, and social and business practices that have denied African Americans equitable access to markets.
Read more at the WaPo.
HuffPost: Democrats Just Approved The Biggest Investment In Native Programs In U.S. History.
The bill, which is expected to pass the House and be signed into law by President Joe Biden as soon as this week, includes more than $31.2 billion for tribal governments and Native communities. The money will go directly to helping American Indians, Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians focus on economic recovery in their communities devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic….
Since the start of the pandemic, Native American communities have been among the hardest hit by the virus. Compared with white people, Indigenous people are nearly twice as likely to be infected by COVID-19, more than three and a half times as likely to be hospitalized and more than twice as likely to die from the virus, according to Feb. 18 data provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention….
More than $6 billion will go to Native health systems. That includes $2.3 billion for COVID-19 vaccines, testing and tracing at the Indian Health Service, along with another $2 billion for lost third-party medical billing reimbursements. IHS will also get $600 million for health facilities construction and sanitation programs, $500 million for clinical health services, $420 million for mental and behavioral health services, $140 million for improving health IT and telehealth access, and $10 million for potable water delivery.
More than $1.2 billion will go to tribal and Native Hawaiian housing programs under the Department of Housing & Urban Development.
More than $1.1 billion will go to Native education programs.
More than $1 billion will go Native families, in the form of tribal child care programs and assistance to tribal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families grantees.
Roughly $900 million will go to Bureau of Indian Affairs programs; $600 million will go to Native communities’ economic and infrastructure investments; $20 million will go toward mitigating the impact of COVID-19 on Native languages; and $19 million will go toward combating domestic violence.
I’ve been worried that Democrats could lose their slim majority in the Senate in the 2022 midterms, but it turns out that quite a few Republican Senators are not going to run again.
Raw Story: ‘Bad news’: GOP campaign consultants are panicking — here’s why.
With Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) announcing he won’t run for re-election in 2022 — joining four other GOP incumbents who have already announced they will be stepping down — Republican campaign consultants are worried about more Senate losses after losing control during Donald Trump’s last year in office.
In an interview with U.S. News and World Report, one Republican insider looked at some of the potential candidates expected to run for the open nominations and worried they might be unelectable.
In addition to Blunt’s seat in Missouri, Republican-held Senate seats in Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Alabama are also opening up meaning the Republican Party will lose the built-in advantage of incumbency, meaning more work and money will have to flow into the races than normal….
The report goes on to note that the five GOP senators who have already announced they won’t seek re-election may see their ranks swell as Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) is hedging his bets and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) has refused to say what his plans are.
Major (sitting) and Champ Biden
The White house dogs had to be sent back to Wilmington, after an incident involving the younger of the two, Major Biden.
CNN: Biden German Shepherd has aggressive incident and is sent back to Delaware.
The two German Shepherds belonging to President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden were returned to the Biden family home in Delaware last week after aggressive behavior at the White House involving Major Biden, two sources with knowledge tell CNN.
Major, who was adopted by Biden in November 2018 from a Delaware animal shelter, had what one of the people described as a “biting incident” with a member of White House security. The exact condition of the victim is unknown, however, the episode was serious enough that the dogs were subsequently moved to Wilmington, Delaware, where they remain….
Major, who is 3 years old, is the younger of the two Biden dogs, and has been known to display agitated behavior on multiple occasions, including jumping, barking, and “charging” at staff and security, according to the people CNN spoke with about the dog’s demeanor at the White House. The older of Biden’s German Shepherds, Champ, is approximately 13 and has slowed down physically due to his advanced age.
I can see why living in the White House could be stressful for a young dog because of all the activity and so many people coming and going. I hope the move won’t be permanent.
“I’ve been getting obsessed with getting our dogs settled because we have an old dog and we have a very young dog,” Jill Biden told Kelly Clarkson last month during an appearance on “The Kelly Clarkson Show.” “They have to take the elevator, they’re not used to that, and they have to go out on the South Lawn with lots of people watching them. So that’s what I’ve been obsessed with, getting everybody settled and calm.”
Biden also said the only place the dogs are not allowed is on the furniture, though she admitted to catching Major on the couch. “They run all over,” said Biden.
A person familiar with the dogs’ schedule confirms to CNN they are in Delaware, but noted they have been known to stay there with minders when the first lady is out of town. Biden departed Monday afternoon for a two-day trip to Washington and California to visit military bases.
Another small White House story from CNN: Bush and Clinton portraits are back on display in White House’s Grand Foyer.
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Posted: March 6, 2021 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: Covid relief bill, FBI, Filibuster, January 6 Capitol insurrection, Joe Biden, Joe Manchin, Proud Boys, Rep. Paul Gosar, Rep. Zoe Lofgren, Robert Scott Palmer, Senate, stimulus, Trump White House |
Dona i gat, Myrtille Henrion-Pico
Good Morning!!
It looks like the Covid relief bill could finally pass the Senate after an all-nighter in which Biden himself was finally brought in to get Joe Manchin on board.
Politico: Senate reaches unemployment benefits deal, ending logjam on Covid aid bill.
Senate Democrats clinched a deal on Friday night over unemployment benefits that will smooth the upper chamber’s passage of President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill this weekend.
After about a nine-hour delay following Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-W.Va.) resistance to an earlier agreement on jobless payments, party leaders announced a new accord with Manchin. The latest deal would provide $300 a week in extra unemployment benefits through Sept. 6, and up to $10,200 in tax relief for unemployed workers.
Democratic leaders also agreed to limit eligibility for that tax relief, restricting the tax-free status of the benefits to households with incomes under $150,000 a year.
By Ophelia Redpath, 1965
The White House quickly announced its support after endorsing the earlier compromise.
“The President supports the compromise agreement, and is grateful to all the senators who worked so hard to reach this outcome,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement on Friday night.
With Manchin’s objections eased, Democrats plowed forward with a marathon “vote-a-rama” — an all-night ordeal in which any senator can offer an amendment to Biden’s bill. The Senate is now on track to pass the package on Saturday….
After Senate passage, the bill will go back to the House, where lawmakers must approve the changes before it reaches Biden’s desk.
At The New York Times, Glenn Thrush reports: More Democrats join the effort to kill the filibuster as a way of saving Biden’s agenda.
A growing number of Senate Democrats are warming to the idea of eliminating the filibuster as they encounter Republican resistance to President Biden’s legislative agenda, forcing the White House to cut deals on issues like the minimum wage and pandemic relief payments.
If the founders envisioned the upper chamber as a “cooling bowl” to moderate more extreme bills passed by the House, the filibuster has often been a deep freezer, infamously deployed by Southern racists to quash reforms during the civil rights era….
Two Senate Democrats — Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona — have said they will oppose any effort to do away with the rule, making any rollback a long shot. Mr. Biden and Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, have been noncommittal about eliminating the filibuster.
Two Senate Democrats — Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona — have said they will oppose any effort to do away with the rule, making any rollback a long shot. Mr. Biden and Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, have been noncommittal about eliminating the filibuster….
By Tatyana Struchkova
On Thursday, Senator Tina Smith of Minnesota took to Twitter to declare her support for ending the filibuster. “The Senate needs to abolish the filibuster. It’s undemocratic,” she wrote, adding, “We need to move this country forward.”
A day earlier, Senator Amy Klobuchar, the state’s senior senator and a standard-bearer for her party’s moderate wing in 2020, said the likely demise in the Senate of a House voting rights bill had flipped her from a “maybe” to a “yes.” [….]
Another centrist, Jon Tester of Montana, has taken a wait-and-see approach, but signaled recently that he too might be open to killing the rule.
The investigations into the January 6 insurrection continue. Recent news:
The New York Times: F.B.I. Finds Contact Between Proud Boys Member and Trump Associate Before Riot.
A member of the far-right nationalist Proud Boys was in communication with a person associated with the White House in the days just before the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, according to a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation.
Location, cellular and call record data revealed a call tying a Proud Boys member to the Trump White House, the official said. The F.B.I. has not determined what they discussed, and the official would not reveal the names of either party.
The connection revealed by the communications data comes as the F.B.I. intensifies its investigation of contacts among far-right extremists, Trump White House associates and conservative members of Congress in the days before the attack….
By Christilla Germain
Separately, Enrique Tarrio, a leader of the far-right nationalist Proud Boys, told The New York Times on Friday that he called Roger J. Stone Jr., a close associate of former President Donald J. Trump’s, while at a protest in front of the home of Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida. During the protest, which occurred in the days before the Capitol assault, he put Mr. Stone on speaker phone to address the gathering.
A law enforcement official said that it was not Mr. Tarrio’s communication with Mr. Stone that was being scrutinized, and that the call made in front of Mr. Rubio’s home was a different matter. That two members of the group were in communication with people associated with the White House underscores the access that violent extremist groups like the Proud Boys had to the White House and to people close to the former president.
In response to this story, attorney Luppe B. Luppen (@Southpaw on Twitter) was reminded of an interesting January 6 tweet by CNN’s Jim Acosta:
This is interesting, from CNN: Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren quietly releases massive social media report on GOP colleagues who voted to overturn the election.
HuffPost reports that the FBI still haven’t arrested this guy who attacked police with a fire extinguisher: Revealed: The Star-Spangled Trumper Filmed Attacking Cops At The Capitol.
With bright red and white stripes across his body and stars down his sleeves, the man in the American flag jacket and “FLORIDA FOR TRUMP” hat wielded a fire extinguisher while charging the U.S. Capitol on the afternoon of Jan. 6. He shoved his way through the crowd of rioters to the police line, then sprayed officers at close range before chucking the emptied canister at them. By nightfall he himself had been lightly harmed, apparently by a police crowd control munition. He held up his shirt to show off his bruised gut during an interview with a female journalist filming him live as cops pushed the mob back from Capitol grounds. Then he looked straight into her livestreaming device and identified himself as Robert Palmer from Clearwater, Florida.
By Andrie Martens
At this point, the man had not only assaulted federal officers before a sea of smartphones while wearing highly distinctive attire, he’d also willingly revealed his own name and hometown on video at the scene of the crime — while still in the same outfit.
This isn’t your typical “Florida Man” story, despite its absurdity. This is the story of a violent insurrectionist who’s still at large — nearly two months later — and one woman who joined the online sleuthing communities crowdsourcing their efforts to bring a Capitol attacker to justice.
Robert Scott Palmer is a white 53-year-old husband and father who runs Son Bright Systems, a cleaning and restoration business. His criminal record includes being sentenced on charges of battery and felony fraud.
HuffPost verified his identity through a search of public records and social media accounts associated with Palmer, after receiving a tip from Amy, a woman living in a rural area out west who in her free time joined the #SeditionHunters network, an online sleuthing community seeking to identify the hundreds of Trump supporters who rioted at the Capitol. (Amy is a pseudonym she chose to protect her privacy.)
Reached by phone late Thursday afternoon, Palmer confirmed he was at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and gave the livestream interview. He claimed that he’d done nothing to justify being struck with the police munition, and that the Biden administration was trying to “vilify the patriots” who were involved in the riot.
Read more about Palmer at the HuffPo link. I wonder why he’s still at large?
More stories to check out today:
Sandra Bierman, Yin Yang
Politico: Prominent retired generals aided Honoré review of Capitol security.
Raw Story: WATCH: QAnon-loving Capitol rioter thought JFK Jr would be ‘sworn in’ as Trump’s vice president on Jan 6
NBC News: Federico Klein, former Trump appointee charged in Capitol riot, wants jail cell without cockroaches.
Politico: Capitol riot shaman’s TV interview irks judge.
Newsweek: Rachel Powell, Capitol Rioter Known as ‘Bullhorn Lady,’ Indicted by Grand Jury.
The New York Times: Cuomo Is Told to Preserve Records at Issue in Sexual Harassment Inquiry.
CBS Evening News: Cuomo accuser alleges a staffer took sexual harassment training for the governor.
Jonathan Chait at New York Magazine: How Never Trumpers Are Becoming Pro-Democracy Republicans.
Madison.com: Ron Johnson: No decision on 2022 run, but leaving office is ‘probably my preference now.’
The New York Times: Democrats Want a Stronger Edge in the Senate. Ohio Could Be Crucial.
Have a great weekend, Sky Dancers!! This is an open thread.
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Posted: March 4, 2021 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: just because |
Good Morning!!
Today is the day that Donald Trump will reclaim the presidency, according to QAnon followers. Unlike before the January 6 insurrection, there have been many public warnings about what will happen today. The House has even decided to shut down today, although the Senate still plans to be in session. But the top QAnon leaders have not bought into the March 4 theories. Perhaps all the security preparations will discourage activists from their planned attacks.
BBC News: Why are QAnon believers obsessed with 4 March?
It’s been six weeks since the inauguration of President Joe Biden, and it would seem that Donald Trump’s best chance of regaining the presidency would be the 2024 election.
But some of his fervent followers who support the baseless QAnon conspiracy theory believe he’ll be coming back sooner – and will somehow be returned to power on 4 March….
The idea stems from the belief among some QAnon followers that the United States turned from a country into a corporation after the passage of the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1871.
It’s an odd, unfounded theory drawn from the sovereign citizen movement, an extreme libertarian fringe that opposes federal laws, general taxation and even the US currency on the grounds that they restrict individual rights.
Believers in the QAnon offshoot maintain that every US president, act and amendment passed after 1871 is illegitimate.
But the theory is based on a false interpretation of the Organic Act, which merely turned the District of Columbia into a municipal corporation, better known as a local governing body, and has no relation to a president or the US as a whole.
Top QAnon “influencers” have been trying to manage expectations about the March 4 theory.
Will Sommer and Pilar Melendez at The Daily Beast: Cops Fear QAnon Violence Thursday. Die-Hards Call ‘False Flag.’
What’s not clear is how many QAnon believers are actually on board with the idea that Trump will return to power that day, or plan to take any action themselves.
Supporters of QAnon, the pro-Trump conspiracy theory that holds that Trump is conducting a secret war against a nefarious cabal of cannibal-Satanists in the Democratic Party and other liberal institutions, were well-represented in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot….
The March 4 theory has been more popular with average QAnon believers than the promoters who make up the conspiracy theory’s public face, according to Travis View, the co-host of QAnon-tracking podcast QAnon Anonymous. While many QAnon leaders have claimed the March 4 is a trap meant to arrest QAnon believers or blame them for violence, “Q”—the anonymous figurehead of the entire movement—hasn’t posted online since December, meaning there is no force to either embrace or dismiss the March 4 idea.
View compared the March 4 beliefs to the idea, controversial even within QAnon, the John F. Kennedy Jr. faked his death to help Trump take on the “deep state.”
“I think this is another situation in which the rank-and-file QAnon followers picked up on it, but it seems to be an embarrassment to some of the more established QAnon promoters,” View said.
On Telegram, the messaging app and social media network where many QAnon believers ended up after being banned from more mainstream platforms in the aftermath of the riot, top QAnon leaders have urged their followers not to gather on March 4, claiming the focus on the date is a ruse meant to undermine them. With “Q” silent, others have cited a “clue” from Q that mentioned both the word “trap” and the phrase “March 4” as proof that the date is meaningless in the QAnon canon.
To me, it seems likely that all of the public warnings and preparations have discouraged these leaders from another attack.
On the other hand, Trump’s DC hotel is acting as if something big will happen today. They raised their room rates on January 3 and 4, according to a Feb. 27 Forbes article:
QAnon adherents are always looking to Trump for validation, says Blazakis, and they recently received a sign when the Washington hotel hiked its rates for March 4. (A spokesperson for the Trump International Hotel did not respond to a request for comment.)
The least expensive room at Trump International comes with a king-size bed with an opulent headboard topped with a gilded crown. Throughout March, this room generally runs anywhere from $476 to $596 per night, with one noteworthy exception. For the dates of March 3 and 4, the king deluxe is selling for $1,331 per night, 180% above the base rate and more than double what a guest would pay any other night next month.
In this, Trump’s hotel is an anomaly among other luxury properties in the nation’s capital, notes Zach Everson in his 1100 Pennsylvania newsletter, which has tracked the comings and goings at the Trump International since the early days of his presidency. (It takes its name from the hotel’s address, just down the street from the White House.) When Everson surveyed other luxury hotels in this price category—the Four Seasons, Hay Adams, and St. Regis—he found no bump in rates for the same dates.
“Raising room prices will surely be interpreted by QAnon as Trump’s support for the March 4 narrative,” says Blazakis. “They absolutely try to interpret the words and actions of President Trump very carefully.”
On the official warning and preparations for March 4:
CNN: Feds on high alert Thursday after warnings about potential threats to US Capitol.
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Posted: March 2, 2021 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: just because |
Breakfast Piece, Herbert Badham
Good Morning!!
This morning, FBI Director Christopher Wray will testify in the Senate about the January 6 attack on the Capitol. It will be interesting to see what Wray has to say now that he doesn’t need to worry about a Trump freak out.
Zachary Cohen at CNN: Senators to grill FBI Director Chris Wray over security failures during January 6 insurrection.
MSNBC and CNN are showing the hearing live.
A couple interesting articles on the insurrection:
ARLnow.com (Arlington, VA): EXCLUSIVE: While the Capitol Was Stormed, A Group of Men Gathered Near the Marine Corps War Memorial.
On Jan. 6, a group of ten or so men — at least one of whom was wearing a tactical earpiece — watched the storming of the U.S. Capitol from across the Potomac in Arlington.
Previously unpublished photos taken by ARLnow that day show the men loitering near the Marine Corps War Memorial, with the overrun Capitol in the background. Parked nearby are numerous vehicles, mostly pickup trucks and SUVs with out-of-state license plates.
One pickup truck, with large toolbox in the back, was left running.
The man with the earpiece appears to have been focused on some sort of communications device with an antenna. He was among a group standing outside, in the cold, wearing hooded sweatshirts and other inconspicuous cold weather gear. None were wearing the tactical vests and helmets that militia members who charged into the Capitol that day wore.
In the Train Compartment, Paul Gustave Fischer
Still, the group was deemed suspicious enough that Arlington County police received at least one call from a passerby, concerned about what they were doing there. An officer drove by after the 4 p.m. call but didn’t see anything, according to police department spokesman Ashley Savage….
In recalling the moment, Westcott — a Navy veteran — said the gathering “had the feeling of a rally point.” He shot the scene from a distance with a 600mm lens, reluctant to get any closer due to potential safety concerns.
By nightfall, the men had dispersed, as ARLnow originally reported in an article about the curfew that night.
What was going on? Was there a “quick reaction force” waiting for a signal from Trump?
What is known is that somewhere outside of the District that day, according to federal prosecutors, a “quick reaction force” with a stockpile of weapons was allegedly ready to join the fight if ordered to do so by President Trump.
At a Friday court hearing for Jessica Watkins, a member of the Oath Keepers militia from Ohio who is accused of helping to plot the attack on the Capitol, prosecutors told a federal judge that “[it is] our understanding” that the quick reaction force did exist and was stationed somewhere near D.C.
Read some speculation about this involving the OathKeepers at DailyKos.
The Washington Post: U.S. alleges Proud Boys planned to break into Capitol on Jan. 6 from many different points.
U.S. prosecutors alleged for the first time that a Washington state leader of the Proud Boys was nominated by members of the group to take charge of the U.S. Capitol breach on Jan. 6 and carried out a plan to split into groups to break into the building from as many points as possible.
In a 24-page filing Monday, U.S. prosecutors asked a federal judge in Washington, D.C., to keep Ethan Nordean, 30, of Seattle, in jail pending trial, appealing a lower court’s Feb. 8 release order.
Nordean was “nominated from within to have ‘war powers’ ” tolead activities at the Capitol after the group’s chairman, Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, was arrested by D.C. police upon arriving in the city two days earlier, Assistant U.S. Attorneys James B. Nelson and Jason B.A. McCullough alleged. They do not state whether Nordean and/or others were formally selected to lead events that day.
The Newspaper, Aldo Luongo
The prosecutors also asserted that Nordean led the group by positioning Proud Boys members — carrying encrypted two-way Chinese-made Baofeng radios and wearing military-style gear — at an entrance to the Capitol grounds that was guarded by only a handful of Capitol Police officers and spreading out others to different locations to avoid triggering police interest.
“By blending in and spreading out, Defendant and those following him on January 6 made it more likely that either a Proud Boy — or a suitably-inspired ‘normie’ [nonmilitant Trump supporter] — would be able to storm the Capitol and its ground in such a way that would interrupt [Congress’s] Certification of the Electoral College vote,” prosecutors said.
The effects of Trump’s incitement of white supremacist violence are going to be with us for a long time. Will he maintain his influence on these terrorist groups even though he’s no longer in office? He’s certainly still in control of the GOP, as we saw at the CPAC meeting over the weekend.
Forbes on the unusual stage set-up at the conference: How A Nazi Symbol At CPAC Turned Into A Massive Hyatt Public Relations Disaster.
In a highly unusual step for a major hotel group, Hyatt felt compelled to issue multiple news releases rejecting Nazi symbolism after a politically charged conference was held in one of its hotels.
One of the year’s marquee events on the GOP calendar, the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) was held at the Hyatt Regency in Orlando, Florida, over the weekend. Speakers included high-profile Republicans including former President Donald Trump, who repeated false claims that he won the 2020 election.
Early on in the three-day event, outrage erupted over the event’s stage design, which drew comparisons to a Norse rune used by Nazis during World War II. A photo of the CPAC stage went viral as thousands of social media users shared posts comparing its distinctive design to an othala rune.
Following World War II, the symbol was adopted by Nazis in an “attempt to reconstruct a mythic ‘Aryan’ past,’” according to the Anti-Defamation League. “Today, it is commonly seen in tattoo form, on flags or banners, as part of group logos, and elsewhere.”
Girl Reading Newspaper, Eastman Johnson
By Saturday afternoon, there had been nearly 100,000 tweets comparing the CPAC stage to the Nazi symbol, as the #boycottHYATT hashtag exploded across Twitter and other platforms.
Hyatt quickly went into damage control, attempting at first to frame the issue as one of free speech. Journalist Nancy Levine tweeted out a Hyatt statement touting the company’s responsibility to provide an inclusive environment for everyone. “We believe in the right of individuals and organizations to peacefully express their views, independent of the degree to which the perspectives of those hosting meetings and events at our hotels align with ours,” said a company spokesperson.
Social media users made it clear they believed Hyatt had missed the point. “A platform for hate is not inclusive, Hyatt,” tweeted one user. “A platform to spread the Big Lie that spawned a violent insurrection and is now fomenting another threatened one is not inclusive.”
Read the rest at Forbes.
It’s beginning to look very bad for Andrew Cuomo. A third woman has now accused him of sexual harassment, and this time there is a damning photo.
The New York Times: Cuomo Accused of Unwanted Advance at a Wedding: ‘Can I Kiss You?’
Anna Ruch had never met Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo before encountering him at a crowded New York City wedding reception in September 2019. Her first impression was positive enough.
The governor was working the room after toasting the newlyweds, and when he came upon Ms. Ruch, now 33, she thanked him for his kind words about her friends. But what happened next instantly unsettled her: Mr. Cuomo put his hand on Ms. Ruch’s bare lower back, she said in an interview on Monday.
When she removed his hand with her own, Ms. Ruch recalled, the governor remarked that she seemed “aggressive” and placed his hands on her cheeks. He asked if he could kiss her, loudly enough for a friend standing nearby to hear. Ms. Ruch was bewildered by the entreaty, she said, and pulled away as the governor drew closer.
“I was so confused and shocked and embarrassed,” said Ms. Ruch, whose recollection was corroborated by the friend, contemporaneous text messages and photographs from the event. “I turned my head away and didn’t have words in that moment.”
Ms. Ruch’s account comes after two former aides accused Mr. Cuomo of sexual harassment in the workplace, plunging his third term into turmoil as the governor’s defenders and Mr. Cuomo himself strain to explain his behavior.
Ruch’s facial expression is painful to look at for anyone who has experienced sexual harassment. Two more Cuomo stories:
Moira Donegan at The Guardian: The Cuomo sexual harassment claims appear to follow a disturbing pattern.
The Washington Post: Andrew Cuomo timeline: His comments about sexual misconduct vs. the allegations against him.
It’s difficult to see how Cuomo survives this, especially since he was already facing scathing criticism of his late response to the pandemic and a cover-up of nursing home deaths in New York.
I’ll add a few more links in the comment thread. I want to watch the Wray hearing, which started a short time ago. If you’re watching too, let us know what you think. This is an open thread of course.
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Posted: February 27, 2021 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: just because |
Eva Skierska, A Lady and Cocotte
Good Morning!!
The vaccine rollout in Massachusetts has been awful, and Governor Charlie Baker has been taking a beating over it. Yesterday the legislature held a public hearing on the problems. WBUR: Emotions Ran High During A State Hearing On Mass.’ Vaccine Rollout.
For six hours, a joint committee of state representatives and senators grilled Gov. Charlie Baker and members of his administration, listening to them testify on issues related to vaccine distribution and equity.
The technical problems people experienced trying to sign up for vaccine appointments loomed large at the hearing. Last week, state websites crashed under the weight of a million more vaccine seekers hustling to get one of a mere 60,000 slots. This week, people posted screenshots showing wait times in the tens or hundreds of thousands of minutes to social media.
The problems mostly revolved around technology failures and confusion about the software being used to manage vaccines, PrepMod.
The disconnect between the state and the PrepMod system seems to be part of a larger trend of people feeling that the rollout is confusing. Clinicians running vaccine sites have expressed frustration at how the rollout policies seem to keep shifting and changing. During the hearing, state Sen. Cindy Friedman spoke to this feeling.
“[The] twists and turns, the change in plans, the communication that changes depending on who you are talking to. Even I, with all my knowledge, am completely at a loss as to what is going on at times,” she said.
The unpredictable nature of the rollout has people on edge. State Sen. Eric Lesser conveyed some of that frustration to the governor during the hearing.
“Will you say you’re sorry to the millions of people [who could not make an appointment],” Lesser demanded.
“Of course. Absolutely. Definitely. Yes,” Baker responded. A hint of exhaustion crept into his voice.
He may have to do this rodeo again. The committee chair invited Baker for another hearing in a couple weeks’ time.
“Well, this one’s been so much fun, I’ll certainly look forward to coming back,” Baker said.
There’s some good news this morning, so I’ll begin with that.
Atelier de Jiel, Black Cat and His Flowers
LOL! The good news for me is that the state is now allowing vaccines for seniors 65 and older and those living in subsidized housing. I had already gotten an appointment for March 4 at my doctor’s office, but yesterday I learned that my town in providing vaccines for my apartment building. They will come to my door, like they did with the flu shots last fall. So I feel fortunate. But my sister who lives in California got her first shot in early February and will be getting the second soon. Still I’m grateful to get it in such a convenient way.
More good news: The House passed the Covid relief bill last night. HuffPost: House Democrats Pass $1.9 Trillion COVID-19 Relief Bill.
After hours of delays, the House passed a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill early Saturday morning, taking the first step toward delivering another round of stimulus checks, enhanced unemployment benefits, increased child tax credits and an influx of cash for state and local governments.
The House passed the bill almost entirely along partisan lines, 219-212, with two Democrats, Kurt Schrader of Oregon and Jared Golden of Maine, voting no.
The measure will now go to the Senate, where it’s set to pass by a “reconciliation” process that requires a simple majority. But not before one key provision is stripped.
The Senate parliamentarian ruled Thursday that a section providing for a $15-an-hour minimum wage could not be done through the reconciliation process, deciding that it did not have enough of an impact on the federal budget to qualify. It left that provision subject to a 60-vote threshold.
Democrats have only 50 seats in the Senate ― with Vice President Kamala Harris able to break a tie in favor of the Democrats ― and the $15 minimum wage was already imperiled because of opposition from Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.). But even though the Senate parliamentarian had ruled that the minimum wage provisions couldn’t be done through reconciliation, House Democrats still included it.
Monroe Cat, Coco De Paris
That means the bill will still have to come back to the House for a final vote after the Senate amends the legislation. However, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) kept the minimum wage hike in after progressives argued they had already compromised on other items they wanted in the COVID-19 relief bill.
Ultimately, the $1.9 trillion package has a number of provisions that progressives love. It would provide a round of $1,400 checks to most Americans. It extends and increases a federal boost to unemployment benefits by $400 a week ― up from $300 ― and provides that extra money until September. It increases the child tax credit to $3,000 for children ages 6 to 17 and raises it to $3,600 for children younger than 6. It also provides $1,400 checks per dependent.
On top of all those policies, there’s money for state and local governments ($350 billion), public schools ($128 billion), higher education ($39 billion), coronavirus testing and contact tracing ($46 billion), rental assistance ($25 billion), restaurants and bars ($25 billion), child care ($15 billion), vaccine distribution ($14 billion), pandemic supplies ($10 billion) and a host of other public health causes.
Nancy Pelosi said yesterday that the process should take about two weeks.
More good news but bad news for Trump. Prosecutors in New York have his tax returns in hand. Eric Lutz at Vanity Fair: Sad: Prosecutors Have Trump’s Tax Returns and There’s Nothing He Can Do About It.
Donald Trump has fought tooth and nail to keep anyone from seeing his tax returns, and likely for good reason: even glimpses of them seemed to show a bumbling businessman who employed shady, and sometimes outright fraudulent, tactics to stay afloat. Were his taxes to wind up in the hands of, say, a Manhattan prosecutor, it could mean some serious trouble for him—particularly if he didn’t have the office of the presidency to protect him from legal liability.
By Catriona Millar
Unfortunately for the ex-president, that’s precisely what’s happened: on Thursday, Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance officially obtained Trump’s personal and corporate tax records and is likely poring over them this very instant as part of his sweeping probe into Trump’s financial affairs. Vance spokesman Danny Frost confirmed that the DA’s office had finally gained possession of the returns, which have long proven elusive for prosecutors and lawmakers alike.
The public probably won’t get a look at them for a while, if ever. But with Vance and his team now scouring the records, Trump’s legal vulnerability may have increased dramatically, as reflected by the desperate and aggrieved statement the former president released earlier this week after the Supreme Court rejected his last-ditch effort to keep the documents hidden. “All they focus on is the persecution of President Donald J. Trump,” he said in the statement, referring to himself in the third person. “I will fight on, just as I have, for the last five years…despite all of the election crimes that were committed against me.”
Does that man ever get off the pity pot? He’s fortunate not to be charged with negligent homicide of more that half-a-million people.
The latest on the FBI’s Capitol riot investigation from The New York Times: F.B.I. Said to Have Singled Out Potential Assailant in Capitol Officer’s Death.
The F.B.I. has pinpointed an assailant in its investigation into the death of Brian D. Sicknick, a Capitol Police officer who was injured while fending off the pro-Trump mob that stormed the Capitol last month and later died, according to two law enforcement officials briefed on the inquiry.
The F.B.I. opened a homicide investigation into Officer Sicknick’s death soon after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Investigators initially struggled to determine what had happened as he fought assailants. They soon began to suspect his death was related to an irritant, like mace or bear spray, that he had inhaled during the riot. Both officers and rioters were armed with such irritants during the attack.
By Adrie Martens
In a significant breakthrough in the case, investigators have now pinpointed a person seen on video of the riot who attacked several officers with bear spray, including Officer Sicknick, according to the officials. And video evidence shows that the assailant discussed attacking officers with the bear spray beforehand, one of the officials said.
While investigators narrowed potential suspects seen in video footage to a single person this week, they have yet to identify the assailant by name….
Given the evidence available to investigators, prosecutors could be more likely to bring charges of assaulting an officer, rather than murder, in the case. But the death of Officer Sicknick, a 42-year-old Air National Guard veteran who served in Saudi Arabia and Kyrgyzstan, could increase the penalties that prosecutors could seek if they took such a case to court.
More from The Washington Post: FBI focuses on video of Capitol Police officer being sprayed with chemicals before he died in pro-Trump riot.
Investigators have uncovered video appearing to show someone spraying a chemical irritant at Capitol Police Officer Brian D. Sicknick and other law enforcement personnel fending off rioters in last month’s attack, though they have yet to identify the person or tie the activity directly to Sicknick’s death, according to people familiar with the matter.
Sicknick’s death has vexed investigators exploring the Jan. 6 riot, as they have struggled to figure out how precisely he died and whether someone could be held criminally accountable in connection with the death.
Investigators determined Sicknick did not die of blunt force trauma, people familiar with the matter said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation. U.S. Capitol Police in a statement Jan. 8 said that Sicknick died “due to injuries sustained while on duty.” No autopsy or toxicology report has been made public, unusual seven weeks after a death.
By Warren Kimble
Capitol Police said in a statement Friday the medical examiner’s report was not yet complete, adding, “We are awaiting toxicology results and continue to work with other government agencies regarding the death investigation.”
The video could offer prosecutors a path to charging someone in connection with Sicknick’s death — though they still have to identify the assailant and would then have to establish that the spraying proved fatal. Prosecutors, instead, might consider bringing assault charges.
The FBI captured screenshots of people visible in the video, one person familiar with the matter said, and in the past month released the images publicly, hoping to identify them. The bureau did not mention Sicknick or depict the chemical spraying when distributing the images.
Yesterday, the government released the intelligence report on the investigation into the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. David Sanger at The New York Times: Biden Won’t Penalize Saudi Crown Prince Over Khashoggi’s Killing, Fearing Relations Breach.
President Biden has decided that the diplomatic cost of directly penalizing Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, is too high, according to senior administration officials, despite a detailed American intelligence finding that he directly approved the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, the dissident and Washington Post columnist who was drugged and dismembered in October 2018.
The decision by Mr. Biden, who during the 2020 campaign called Saudi Arabia a “pariah” state with “no redeeming social value,” came after weeks of debate in which his newly formed national security team advised him that there was no way to formally bar the heir to the Saudi crown from entering the United States, or to weigh criminal charges against him, without breaching the relationship with one of America’s key Arab allies.
Officials said a consensus developed inside the White House that the cost of that breach, in Saudi cooperation on counterterrorism and in confronting Iran, was simply too high.
For Mr. Biden, the decision was a telling indication of how his more cautious instincts kicked in, as the responsibilities of managing a difficult ally led him to find ways other than going directly after Prince Mohammed to make Saudi Arabia pay a price….
Albena Vatcheva, Dreaming
Many organizations were pressing Mr. Biden to, at a minimum, impose the same travel sanctions against the crown prince as the Trump administration imposed on others involved in the plot.
Mr. Biden’s aides said that as a practical matter, Prince Mohammed would not be invited to the United States anytime soon, and they denied that they were giving Saudi Arabia a pass, describing series of new actions on lower-level officials intended to penalize elite elements of the Saudi military and impose new deterrents to human rights abuses.
Those actions, approved by Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, include a travel ban on Saudi Arabia’s former intelligence chief, who was deeply involved in the Khashoggi operation, and on the Rapid Intervention Force, a unit of the Saudi Royal Guard that protects Prince Mohammed — and is under his direct control.
Biden is getting a lot of pushback on the decision to let MBS skate. Examples:
Nicholas Kristof: President Biden Lets a Saudi Murderer Walk.
Graeme Wood at The Atlantic: Murderers Should Be Called Murderers. Frequently and to their faces.
The Washington Post Editorial Board: Mohammed bin Salman is guilty of murder. Biden should not give him a pass.
At least it’s not all bad news today. What stories have you been following?
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It also states that domestic violent extremists have a continued “perception of election fraud and other conspiracy theories associated with the presidential transition, which may contribute to (Domestic Violent Extremists) mobilizing to violence with little or no warning.”
While federal law enforcement officials have sought to reassure the American public in the months since the riot that they are up to the task on both fronts, their public remarks also lay bare the enormity of the challenge they face in tracking potential threats to not only the nation’s capital, but across the country.
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