Posted: February 13, 2021 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: Donald Trump, impeachment trial witnesses, Kevin McCarthy, Mike Pence, National Guard, Rep.Jaime Herrera Beutler, Second Trump impeachment trial, Secret Service, Sheldon Whitehouse |
Ambrosius Benson, Portrait of a Woman and cat
Good Morning!!
Yesterday after the Trump lawyers in the impeachment trial presented their pathetic defense of Trump’s January 6, 2020 coup attempt, details about a phone call between Trump and GOP House leader Kevin McCarthy began getting a lot of attention. The facts had actually been available for some time in the Longview, Washington Daily News, but hadn’t broken through in major media outlets until CNN broke this story yesterday: New details about Trump-McCarthy shouting match show Trump refused to call off the rioters.
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Posted: February 11, 2021 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: just because |
The Barbarians, Max Ernst, 1937
Good Morning!!
I watched quite a bit of the House managers’ presentations in the second Trump impeachment trial yesterday, and they were compelling. They revealed shocking new video evidence that showed how close Mike Pence and members of Congress came to being attacked and even killed by Trump’s mob along with precise timelines that showed Trump’s complicity with the seditionist rioters, including his refusal to authorize National Guard troops to help overwhelmed Capital and Municipal police. I can’t cover everything, but I’ll share some highlights of yesterday’s presentations.
Mike Pence was in serious danger of being attacked and/or assassinated and Trump knew it in real time.
HuffPost: Trump’s Tweet Attacking Pence Came Right After Learning His VP’s Life Was In Danger.
WASHINGTON ― Donald Trump posted a tweet attacking his own vice president for lacking “the courage” to overturn the election for him ― enraging his Jan. 6 mob even further ― just minutes after learning that Mike Pence had been removed from the Senate chamber for his own safety.
Newly elected Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) told reporters Wednesday night, following the second day of the former president’s impeachment trial, that Trump had called for his help in delaying election certification the afternoon of the U.S. Capitol attack but he had told Trump that Pence had just been taken from the Senate and he couldn’t talk just then.
“He didn’t get a chance to say a whole lot because I said, ‘Mr. President, they just took the vice president out. I’ve got to go,’” Tuberville said.
According to video footage from that day, Pence was removed from the Senate at 2:14 p.m. after rioters had broken into the Capitol, meaning that when Trump lashed out at Pence at 2:24 p.m., he already knew Pence’s life was in danger.
Portrait, Rene Magritte, 1935
“Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution,” Trump wrote in his tweet.
Videos shown by Democratic House members presenting their impeachment case document that rioters were aware of Trump’s tweet. Some had erected a gallows outside the Capitol. Others roamed the halls, chanting, “Hang Mike Pence.”
The exact time Pence was taken from the Senate following the breach of the Capitol by the mob Trump had incited to try to overturn the presidential election was known the day of the attack, as was the time of Trump’s tweet. What was not known until Tuberville’s statement was whether Trump was aware of the danger Pence was in at the time he posted his tweet.
Never before released video showed that Pence narrowly escaped the mob as he and his family were evacuated. The Washington Post:
House managers introduced previously unpublished security camera footage of the Jan. 6 Capitol siege on Wednesday during the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump.
The video included body camera footage from an officer struggling to keep rioters from breaching an entrance on the west side of the Capitol. It also showed Vice President Mike Pence, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and other members of Congress rushing to evacuate the building. Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), one of the House impeachment managers, said the new video showed rioters were 58 steps away from lawmakers.
The Washington Post analyzed the security camera videos, which shed new light on how close lawmakers came to danger.
Watch the videos at the link above.
Mitt Romney was also in mortal danger, and he was saved by hero cop Eugene Goodman. NBC News: ‘I’m very fortunate’: Capitol officer saved Sen. Mitt Romney from the mob.
“I was very fortunate indeed that Officer Goodman was there to get me in the right direction,” Romney, R-Utah, told reporters Wednesday after the video demonstrated how close he came to the pro-Trump mob that stormed the Capitol.
The Giantess, Leonora Carrington
Delegate Stacey Plaskett, D-Virgin Islands, one of the House managers prosecuting Trump at his Senate trial, showed the new security camera video, which had no sound. It featured Goodman rushing to confront the mob — but first scrambling to guide Romney to safety.
The video shows Goodman rushing through the Ohio Clock Corridor outside the Senate chamber toward Romney, waving him to turn around and take a different path. Romney then turns and hurries back toward the Senate chamber.
Romney was in the chamber Wednesday as Plaskett played the video, and he watched intently.
He told reporters afterward that he hadn’t been aware of the identity of his guardian angel.
“I did not know that was Officer Goodman. I look forward to thanking him when I next see him,” Romney said.
For the first time, impeachment managers played devastating audio of police officers desperately pleading for back-up. HuffPost: Newly Released Audio Reveals Desperate Police Struggle To Fend Off Capitol Attackers.
“You’ve got a group of about 50 charging up the hill on the West Front,” a police dispatcher can be heard saying in one recording. “They’re throwing poles at us,” an officer responds.
The new audio was presented in the Senate on Wednesday by Del. Stacey Plaskett (D-Virgin Islands), one of the House impeachment managers for former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial.
In one recording, dispatch advises officers at the Capitol that “the speech has ended,” referring to Trump’s rally remarks in which he told his followers to “fight like hell” shortly before they headed toward Congress that day.
“They’re approaching the wall now,” dispatch warns as Trump supporters begin to scale the Capitol building.
“They’re starting to dismantle the reviewing stand,” an officer says.
Moments later, a panicked voice shouts out to dispatch: “Cruiser 50, give me DSO [Domestic Security Operations] up here now! DSO! Multiple law enforcement injuries! DSO, get up here!” [….]\In a recording played by Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), another impeachment manager, an officer tells dispatch that he and his fellow officers have been overrun by the mob.
“We lost the line. We’ve lost the line,” the officer can be heard saying. “We have been flanked and we’ve lost the line,” he yells.
Four inhabitants of Mexico, Frida Kahlo, 1938
Meanwhile, Trump was gleefully watching the riot on TV and refusing to send in the National Guard. Yahoo News: Trump ‘made no attempt’ to reach the National Guard to help overwhelmed Capitol Police, Rep. Castro says.
Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, hammered the former president over his initial response to the riot at the U.S. Capitol being carried out by his supporters….
“You heard from my colleagues that when planning this attack, the insurgents predicted that Donald Trump would command the National Guard to help them,” Castro said in his presentation on the Senate floor. “There’s a lot that we don’t know yet about what happened that day, but here’s what we do know: Donald Trump did not send help to these officers who were badly outnumbered, overwhelmed and being beaten down.” [….]
“Two hours into the insurrection, by 3 p.m., President Trump had not deployed the National Guard or any other law enforcement to help, despite multiple pleas to do so,” Castro said. “President Donald Trump was, at the time, our commander in chief of the United States of America. He took a solemn oath to preserve, protect and defend this country and he failed to uphold that oath. In fact, there’s no indication that President Trump ever made a call to have the Guard deployed or had anything to do with the Guard being deployed when it ultimately was.”
Using video of the riot, tweets by the former president and news reports detailing the delayed deployment of Guard troops, Castro pressed his case that Trump initially didn’t want the insurrection to stop as it had successfully interrupted the certification of his loss against Joe Biden. Notably, Castro said, acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller had listed the officials he spoke with as the riot unfolded who had requested the deployment Guard troops. Trump was not one of them.
“Shortly after 3:04 p.m., the acting defense secretary announced that the Guard had been activated and listed the people he spoke with prior to this activation, including Vice President Mike Pence, Speaker Pelosi, Leader McConnell, Sen. Schumer and Rep. Hoyer. But that list did not include the president,” Castro said. “This omission of his name was not reportedly accidental. According to reports, ‘Trump initially rebuffed requests to mobilize the National Guard and required interference by other officials, including his own White House counsel.’ And later, ‘as a mob of Trump supporters breached police barricades and seized the Capitol,’ Trump reportedly was ‘disengaged in discussions with Pentagon leaders about deploying the National Guard to aid the overwhelmed U.S. Capitol police.’
And how is Trump reacting to the case against him?
CNN: Trump advisers say he hasn’t shown remorse for the insurrection and relationship with Pence remains damaged.
As former President Donald Trump watched his Senate trial on TV from afar in Florida, he was, predictably, unmoved by the Senate impeachment trial’s display of previously unreleased security footage of the Jan. 6 MAGA riot. On Wednesday, Trump spent much of his time mocking the different Democratic speakers and critiquing their videos and timelines, two sources familiar with the matter said. The former president was in a “really good mood” on Wednesday and “thought their presentations [were] terrible today. Massive drop-off in quality,” Jason Miller, a senior adviser to Trump who spoke to him Wednesday, relayed to The Daily Beast.
By the time the Democratic side began presenting the never-before-seen footage, Trump kept sneering. According to a person with knowledge of the situation, the ex-president on Wednesday privately blasted the new video presentation as part of an emotionally manipulative ploy by his enemies, and as an attempt to divide the country. This source added that Trump reserved much of his contempt for Rep. Eric Swalwell, who he knocked as “pathetic.”
More stories to check out:
La Muse, Pablo Picasso, 1935
Salt Lake City Tribune: What Sen. Mike Lee told me about Trump’s call the day of the Capitol riot.
The New York Times: Impeachment Video Reveals a True American Horror Story.
Yahoo News: Impeachment managers show chilling new footage of Capitol attack at Trump’s trial.
Stephen Collinson at CNN: New details on Capitol’s day of terror are devastating indictment of Trump.
Dana Millbank: You can’t hear that officer’s scream and acquit the man who caused it.
KTLA5 Los Angeles: Impeachment trial: Pelosi evacuated from Capitol during riot because mob sought to kill her, Dems say.
The Daily Beast: Impeachment Manager Stacey Plaskett Brings Some Truth. The House delegate from the Virgin Islands lobbied for this position last time and didn’t get it. Democrats sure ought to be glad they gave it to her this time.
The Washington Post: Stacey Plaskett, a House delegate who couldn’t vote to impeach Trump, is using her prosecutorial background to try to convict him.
Walter Shapiro at The New Republic: The Entire Republican Party Is on Trial. During the impeachment proceedings, the GOP is revealing just how soulless and spineless it really is.
Tim Reid at Reuters: Exclusive: Dozens of former Republican officials in talks to form anti-Trump third party.
I’ve only scratched the surface of what happened yesterday. I’m very glad I watched the presentations, especially Stacey Plaskett’s. She is a rock star.
Have a great Thursday, Sky Dancers!
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Posted: February 9, 2021 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: both-sidesing media, Donald Trump, GOP extremism, second impeachment trial, Trump defense arguments |
Good Morning!!
Yesterday Dakinikat posted one of those typical Politico “both-sidesy” “Democrats in disarray” articles about second Trump impeachment trial, which begins today. Supposedly Democrats are torn about whether they should go all out to convict trump or just give up because the whole thing is a “lost cause.” Why call witnesses and make a big scene when Republicans hold all the cards anyway? Of course Politico ignores the fact that a clear majority of Americans support conviction. CBS News:
As former President Trump’s second impeachment trial begins, a 56%-majority of Americans would like the Senate to vote to convict him, and the same percentage say he encouraged violence at the Capitol — views that are still somewhat linked to Americans’ presidential votes in 2020, reflecting ongoing partisan division.
To those in favor of conviction, this trial is described as holding Mr. Trump “accountable” and “defending democracy.” To those Americans (mostly, Republicans) opposed to it, the trial is “unnecessary” and a “distraction.”
Media critic Eric Boehlert writes: Sorry Politico, impeachment’s not “lost cause” for Dems — it’s a home run.
As the impeachment curtain rises in the Senate today, with Trump being charged with “incitmdent of insurrection” for his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, the D.C. press once again seems to think the impeachment of a Republican president poses political problems…for Democrats. It’s a strange prism through which to view the historic proceedings, as Trump becomes the first president in 240 years to be impeached twice — and in the span of just 13 months….
Overall, the press seems much more focused on the fact that Democrats likely won’t win a conviction, than they are on the swelling movement nationwide in favor of conviction. Republicans are clearly out of step with the public, but it’s Democrats who are portrayed as being boxed in and “muzzled.”
As for Republicans and the political consequences impeachment poses for them? Politico wasn’t interested, and made no suggestion that the GOP stands at the crossroads regarding Trump and the murderous mob he inspired to ransack the U.S. Capitol. The GOP, apparently, faces no impeachment fallout, only Democrats.
This is the type of coverage we saw during Trump’s impeachment last year, when news outlets flipped common sense on its head and became wed to idea that an unpopular Republican president being impeached represented a political problem for his opponents. The Washington Post insisted “hand-wringing” Democrats were “bracing” for scores of impeachment defections in the House. In the end, exactly two Democrats defected. Meanwhile, adopting Republican talking points, the New York Times reported that the first impeachment was “a political plus” for Trump, and “risky” for Democrats.
Talk about turning the tables. Back when Democrat Bill Clinton was impeached in 1999, the overriding political story was how badly would the historic proceeding damage Democrats? That, despite the fact that polling showed Americans overwhelmingly opposed the impeachment of Clinton, whose approval rating swelled into the 70’s while being persecuted by the GOP. Yet last year when it was Democrats who were doing the impeaching, and when they had the support of the public, the press assumed they’d be the ones to pay a high price. Same is true again this year.
For Democrats, it’s heads you lose, tails you lose.
Read the whole thing at the link. As the trial plays out, we need to remember that there really is no liberal media. In fact, the “savvy” DC press always works hard to find a “both-sides” narrative, no matter how bad things get for Republicans.
At Yahoo News, Kendell Karson and Meg Cunningham write: GOP on defense as Democrats harness party’s ties to extremism.
As the GOP contends with its future and Trump’s role in it, Democrats are seizing on the deep divisions within the Republican ranks over its right wing and seeking to define the frontline of the party by its most extreme members.
House Democrats’ campaign apparatus deployed $500,000 for an advertising campaign tethering Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., the minority leader, and seven vulnerable House Republicans in districts President Joe Biden won last year to Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s extremist rhetoric and the QAnon conspiracy theory.
The opening shot by Democrats accuses the swing district Republicans of standing “with Q, not you.
“Washington Republicans have made their choice — they chose to cave to the murderous QAnon mob that has taken over their party,” said Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-N.Y., the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. They are “refusing to hold those responsible for the attack on the Capitol accountable, offering nothing but empty words after years of hyping up lies and conspiracy theories.”
Read more at the link.
Schumer and McConnell have reached an agreement for how the trial will proceed. The Hill:
The timeline would allow the trial to wrap up as early as next week, if both sides agree not to call witnesses.
Under the deal, the Senate will debate and vote on Tuesday on whether the trial is constitutional. The effort to declare the trial unconstitutional will fall short after Rand Paul (R-Ky.) forced a vote on the issue late last month. Forty-four GOP senators supported his effort.
Opening arguments will start on Wednesday. Under the deal, the House impeachment managers and Trump’s team will have 16 hours over two days each to present their case to the Senate….
The deal also leaves the door open to calling witnesses. The House impeachment managers previously invited Trump to testify under oath, an offer his attorneys rejected. They haven’t yet said if they will try to get the Senate to call other witnesses.
Today the Senators will debate the constitutionality of trying a president who has left office. Trump’s lawyers claim that is unconstitutional, but the expert they rely on for their arguments says they are misinterpreting his scholarship.
At NPR, Nina Totenberg interviews that expert: ‘I Said The Opposite’: Criticism Of Trump’s Impeachment Defense Intensifies.
A constitutional law professor whose work is cited extensively by former President Trump’s lawyers in their impeachment defense brief says his work has been seriously misrepresented.
In a 78-page brief filed in the U.S. Senate Monday, Trump’s lawyers rely heavily on the work of Michigan State University Professor Brian Kalt, author of the seminal article about impeachment of a former president. His work is cited 15 times in the Trump brief, often for the proposition that the Senate does not have the authority under the constitution to try an impeached ex-president.
The problem is that Kalt’s 2001 book-length law review article concluded that, on balance, the historical evidence is against Trump’s legal argument.
“The worst part is the three places where they said I said something when, in fact, I said the opposite,” Kalt said in an interview with NPR.
Trump’s lawyers argue that the Senate lacks jurisdiction because the president is already out of office, making an impeachment trial pointless. Kalt argues that impeachment is about more than removal; it’s about accountability and deterrence. “The framers worried about people abusing their power to keep themselves in office,” he adds. “The point is the timing of the conduct, not the timing of the legal proceeding.”
Read the rest at NPR.
David Corn at Mother Jones: Why the Second Impeachment of Donald Trump Is More Important Than the First.
[D]espite the the deja-vu-ness of this been-there/done-that impeachment and the absence of a possible political death sentence, the second Trump impeachment is far more important than the first, for it ultimately is about securing and protecting the defining ideal of the United States: that this nation is a democracy that honors principle not power….
The core issue is a president jeopardizing American democracy. For the first time since the republic was born, the United States did not experience a peaceful transfer of power following a presidential election. (Yes, there’s an asterisk for the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln that led six months later to the Civil War.) Trump spent weeks prior to the election plotting how to subvert it should he lose, and then he put his scheme in motion, pushing the big lie that massive fraud had occurred and a nefarious cabal had stolen his victory. He falsely declared victory before all the votes were counted. He and his allies refused to accept legitimate and certified results, filing frivolous lawsuits that were routinely tossed out and spreading baseless conspiracy theories. They lied—over and over—about vote tallies and supposed irregularities that did not exist. It was a psyop campaign, information warfare—similar to the covert attack waged against the 2016 election by Vladimir Putin. And evoking his infamous Ukraine phone conversation, Trump called Georgia state officials and pressured them to “find” him just enough votes to secure a victory in that state. Coercing local officials to falsify election results can be a crime.
This all happened before the seditious and murderous attack on the US Capitol on January 6. For months, Trump had waged war against the election and the American political system, seeking to discredit it so he could retain power, misleading millions of America, and exploiting paranoia, fear, and political division. His impeachable acts did not begin on the that dreadful day. “The full story is a crime story, a long crime story,” one of the House impeachment managers tells me. The attack on Congress—which aimed to overturn the election results—was the product of a lengthy stretch of disinformation and incitement.
More points of view on the trial:
Richard H. Pildes at The Atlantic: January 6 Was Just One Day in a Sustained Campaign.
Stephen Collinson at CNN: Trump’s trial set to rock Washington and echo through the ages.
Peter D. Keisler and Richard D. Bernstein: at The Atlantic: Freedom of Speech Doesn’t Mean What Trump’s Lawyers Want It to Mean.
Steve Coll at The New Yorker: Trump’s Impeachment Trial Offers a Chance to Seize the Initiative on the Future of Free Speech.
Michael Conway: How Republicans’ defense of Trump over his impeachment trial hurts him in the long run.
The Daily Beast: Trump Preps Nutty Impeachment Defense as D.C. Ducks.
Vanity Fair: Trump’s Impeachment Lawyers: He was Heartbroken by Capitol Violence, How Dare You Suggest Otherwise.
Will you be watching today’s arguments? If so, let us know what you think.
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Posted: February 6, 2021 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: just because |
Zelda Fitzgerald, author of Save Me the Waltz
Good Morning!!
It looks like some of us will be getting another stimulus check. Biden and Congressional Democrats aren’t fooling around. They are determined to inject some money into the economy, whether the Republicans like it or not. Also unhappy about it: Larry Summers, who has been wrong again and again, but still thinks he knows best and the usual “savvy” journalists.
The New York Times: House gives final approval to budget plan including Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus, fast tracking the process.
The House gave final approval on Friday to a budget blueprint that included President Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus plan, advancing it over unanimous Republican opposition as Democrats pressed forward with plans to begin drafting the aid package next week and speed it through the House by the end of the month.
“Our work to crush the coronavirus and deliver relief to the American people is urgent and of the highest priority,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi wrote in a letter to Democrats shortly before the bill passed by a 219-to-209 margin.
President Biden, speaking just before the House acted, cited a weak jobs report in justifying the use of a procedural device, called reconciliation, to ram through the measure if Senate Republicans oppose his effort to speed aid to families, businesses, health care providers and local governments.
“It is very clear our economy is still in trouble,” Mr. Biden said during remarks at the White House — amping up the pressure on an upper chamber bracing for former President Donald J. Trump’s impeachment trial next week.
“I know some in Congress think we’ve already done enough to deal with the crisis in the country,” added Mr. Biden, who reiterated his commitment to fund $1,400 direct checks to low- and middle-income Americans. “That’s not what I see. I see enormous pain in this country. A lot of folks out of work. A lot of folks going hungry.” [….]
Hours earlier, as the sun rose over the Capitol dome, the Senate approved a fast-track budget measure, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting her first-ever tiebreaking vote after a grinding all-night session. The move, in theory, allows them to enact the package without any Republican votes.
Senate leaders could begin working on their own bill in hopes of delivering a final package to Mr. Biden’s desk before supplemental unemployment benefits are set to expire in mid-March.
Shirley Jackson, author of The Haunting of Hill House
But of course there are nay-sayers. Ryan Cooper at The Week: Savvy Washington insiders strike again.
Here’s the story. Late on Thursday, Summers published a ponderous op-ed in The Washington Post fretting that maybe the COVID relief package is too big. It might contain so much spending that it will push the economy above its potential full capacity, causing inflation and financial instability, he worried. Then the jokers at Politico’s Playbook newsletter (your best source for ill-disguised advertorials and tips on hiding political bribes) repeated his argument. Many “liberal wonks have been whispering about” Summers’ argument “for weeks,” worrying the package “could harm the economy next year, when Democrats will be defending narrow congressional majorities in the midterms,” they write. Politico claimed on Twitter that it was being circulated in the White House as well….
Let me first talk about the merits of the argument, because they shed light on the motivations here. In brief, these worries about “overshooting” the stimulus are completely ridiculous. Jobs data released Friday show the economy is basically stalled out — with unemployment at 6.3 percent, and the fraction of prime-age workers who are employed four points below where it was before the pandemic (just barely above the bottom of the Great Recession), the U.S. is something like 10 million jobs in the hole.
Moreover, as economist Paul Krugman points out, the pandemic relief package is mostly not stimulus per se — it is more aimed at keeping the economy on ice until everyone can be vaccinated. The boost to unemployment insurance and aid to state and local governments, for instance, will partly go unspent if we hit full employment rapidly. Indeed, we may need another round of real stimulus once the vaccines are out. And even if we were somehow to hit full capacity and inflation starts to spike, the Federal Reserve can easily raise interest rates to compensate — a fact Summers bizarrely skates over by limply suggesting they might not for some reason.
Head over to The Week to read the rest.
But how interested are White House insiders in what Summers thinks? Kara Voght at Mother Jones: The White House Doesn’t Want To Hear From Larry Summers.
Economist Larry Summers has been the kingpin of every economic calamity Democrats have weathered over the last three decades. But Barack Obama’s National Economic Council chair during the Great Recession finds himself as persona non grata this week after penning an op-ed undermining the $1.9 trillion COVID relief package President Joe Biden is trying to push through Congress.
Summers’ treatise spread from wonk to wonk in the White House with the contagion of a venereal disease—and was about as well-received. One aide characterized the response as “widespread disagreement.” White House economists had already been booked for media hits to discuss the January jobs report, airtime that permitted many administration voices to rebuke Summers in unison. “The president and the administration have a lot of respect for Professor Summers, but we disagree here,” Bharat Ramamurti, a deputy NEC director, told CBS Radio. Jared Bernstein, a progressive labor economist and member of Biden’s Council of Economic Advisors who served alongside Summers in the Obama administration, was less polite. “I think he’s wrong,” Bernstein told CNN on Friday morning. “I think he’s wrong in a pretty profound way.”
Daphne Du Maurier, author of Rebecca
Summers’ piece suggested that the proposed $1.9 trillion was far more than the economy required, pointing to a recent analysis from the Congressional Budget Office that suggested the amount is three times larger than the hole it needs to fill. But he also argued against it on political grounds: Passing such a massive relief bill would test the political tolerance for the jobs and infrastructure package Biden has promised to follow, even though poll after poll has shown broad bipartisan support among voters for Biden’s first proposal. Summers called that pending plan the “nation’s highest priority” as he raised concerns about the federal deficit—a factor Democrats have mostly purged from consideration in moments of economic crisis.
Summers also took jabs from Senate Democrats, who have almost uniformly backed the size of the White House’s proposal. During a meeting of Senate chiefs of staff on Friday morning, an aide to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) thanked everyone for maintaining the party line, acknowledging that some of their bosses believed the package was either too much or not enough, according to a source familiar with the meeting. “And then there’s Larry Summers,” the aide said, “who can’t decide if we’re doing too much or not enough—but knows that, whatever we’re doing, is wrong.”
Yesterday, Biden announced that Trump won’t be getting the top secret intelligence briefings that most former presidents receive. The New York Times: Biden Bars Trump From Receiving Intelligence Briefings, Citing ‘Erratic Behavior.’
President Biden said on Friday that he would bar his predecessor, Donald J. Trump, from receiving intelligence briefings traditionally given to former presidents, saying that Mr. Trump could not be trusted because of his “erratic behavior” even before the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
The move was the first time that a former president had been cut out of the briefings, which are provided partly as a courtesy and partly for the moments when a sitting president reaches out for advice. Currently, the briefings are offered on a regular basis to Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
Mr. Biden, speaking to Norah O’Donnell of CBS News, said Mr. Trump’s behavior worried him “unrelated to the insurrection” that gave rise to the second impeachment of Mr. Trump.
“I just think that there is no need for him to have the intelligence briefings,” Mr. Biden said.
“What value is giving him an intelligence briefing?” Mr. Biden added. “What impact does he have at all, other than the fact he might slip and say something?”
Angela Carter, author of The Bloody Chamber and Nights at the Circus
Trump’s second impeachment trial is scheduled to begin on Tuesday, but we still don’t know much about how it will be conducted. Here’s an explainer from the Associated Press, but as far as I can tell we still don’t know what the rules will be or whether there will be witnesses. It does seem clear that Democratic impeachment managers will introduce highly emotional descriptions of the events of January 6 and their effects on members of Congress. Also from the AP: Trump impeachment trial confronts memories of Capitol siege.
The impeachment trial of Donald Trump is more than an effort to convict the former president of inciting an insurrection. It’s a chance for a public accounting and remembrance of the worst attack on the U.S. Capitol in 200 years.
In the month since the Jan. 6 siege by a pro-Trump mob, encouraged by his call to “fight like hell” to overturn the election, defenders of the former president say it’s time to move on.
Trump is long gone, ensconced at his Mar-a-Lago club, and Democrat Joe Biden is the new president in the White House. With the trial set to begin Tuesday, and a supermajority of senators unlikely to convict him on the single charge, the question arises: Why bother?
Yet for many lawmakers who were witnesses, onlookers and survivors of that bloody day, it’s not over.
One by one, lawmakers have begun sharing personal accounts of their experiences of that harrowing afternoon. Some were in the Capitol fleeing for safety, while others watched in disbelief from adjacent offices. They tell of hiding behind doors, arming themselves with office supplies and fearing for their lives as the rioters stalked the halls, pursued political leaders and trashed the domed icon of democracy.
“I never imagined what was coming,” said Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif., recounted in a speech on the House floor.
Memory is a powerful tool, and their remembrances, alongside the impeachment proceedings, will preserve a public record of the attack for the Congressional Record. Five people died and more than 100 people have been arrested in a nationwide FBI roundup of alleged ringleaders and participants, a dragnet unlike many in recent times. While that is sufficient for some, assured the perpetrators will be brought to justice, others say the trial will force Congress, and the country, to consider accountability.
Patricia Highsmith, author of The Talented Mr. Ripley and Strangers on a Train
One more powerful read before I wrap this up. Yesterday at The New York Times, Michelle Goldberg wrote about Q-Anon and the continued demonization of Hillary Clinton: QAnon Believers Are Obsessed With Hillary Clinton. She Has Thoughts.
A clear indication that Marjorie Taylor Greene was more than a dabbler in QAnon was her 2018 endorsement of “Frazzledrip,” one of the most grotesque tendrils of the movement’s mythology. You “have to go down a number of rabbit holes to get that far,” said Mike Rothschild, whose book about QAnon, “The Storm Is Upon Us,” comes out later this year.
The lurid fantasy of Frazzledrip refers to an imaginary video said to show Hillary Clinton and her former aide, Huma Abedin, assaulting and disfiguring a young girl, and drinking her blood. It holds that several cops saw the video, and Clinton had them killed….
Contemplating Frazzledrip, it occurred to me that QAnon is the obscene apotheosis of three decades of Clinton demonization. It’s other things as well, including a repurposed version of the old anti-Semitic blood libel, which accused Jews of using the blood of Christian children in their rituals, and a cult lusting for mass public executions. According to the F.B.I., it’s a domestic terror threat.
But QAnon is also the terminal stage of the national derangement over Clinton that began as soon as she entered public life. “It’s my belief that QAnon really took off because it was based on Hillary Clinton,” said Rothschild. “It was based specifically on something that a lot of 4chan dwellers wanted to see happen, which was Hillary Clinton arrested and sort of dragged away in chains.”
I was curious what Clinton thinks about all this, and it turns out she’s been thinking about it a lot. “For me, it does go back to my earliest days in national politics, when it became clear to me that there was a bit of a market in trafficking in the most outlandish accusations and wild stories concerning me, my family, people that we knew, people close to us,” she told me….
For Clinton, these supernatural smears are part of an old story. “This is rooted in ancient scapegoating of women, of doing everything to undermine women in the public arena, women with their own voices, women who speak up against power and the patriarchy,” she said. “This is a Salem Witch Trials line of argument against independent, outspoken, pushy women. And it began to metastasize around me.” In this sense, Frazzledrip is just a particularly disgusting version of misogynist hatred she’s always contended with.
Read the whole story at the NYT link.
That’s it for me today. What’s on your mind?
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Posted: February 4, 2021 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: Afternoon Reads, Republican politics, U.S. Politics | Tags: Biden stimulus plan, Joe Biden, Kevin McCarthy, Liz Cheney, Marjorie Taylor Greene, QAnon |
z;o Vittorio Matteo Corcos, Dreams / Sogni, 1896
Good Afternoon!!
I’ve never been a Joe Biden fan. Early on in the 2020 primaries, I even thought I might refuse to vote for him if he were the Democratic nominee. But as time went on, he grew on me. Now I think he probably is exactly what we needed. He’s a “normal” Democratic politician, he’s extremely knowledgeable and experienced in the ways of the Senate, and he comes across as a decent person. He’s the perfect antidote to Trump’s psychotic behavior, ignorance, and incompetence. And it turns out that most Americans support what Biden is doing as president.
AP: AP-NORC Poll: Americans open to Biden’s approach to crises.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Two weeks into a new administration, a majority of Americans say they have at least some confidence in President Joe Biden and his ability to manage the myriad crises facing the nation, including the raging coronavirus pandemic.
Overall, 61% approve of Biden’s handling of his job in his first days in office, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Though the bulk of Biden’s support is from fellow Democrats, about a quarter of Republicans say they approve of his early days in office.
Even at a moment of deep national divisions, those numbers suggest Biden, as with most of his recent predecessors, may enjoy something of a honeymoon period. Nearly all modern presidents have had approval ratings averaging 55% or higher over their first three months in office, according to Gallup polling. There was one exception: Donald Trump, whose approval rating never surpassed 50% in Gallup polls, even at the start of his presidency.
The Travelling Companions by Augustus Egg
Obviously Biden faces serious challenges, but so far the public as a whole is supportive.
Biden’s standing with the public will quickly face significant tests. He inherited from Trump a pandemic spiraling out of control, a sluggish rollout of crucial vaccines, deep economic uncertainty and the jarring fallout of the Jan. 6 riot on Capitol Hill. It’s a historic confluence of crises that historians have compared to what faced Abraham Lincoln on the eve of the Civil War or Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the depths of the Great Depression.
Biden’s advisers know that the new president will be quickly judged by Americans on his handling of the pandemic, which has killed more than 450,000 people in the U.S. He’s urgently pressing Congress to pass a $1.9 trillion relief package that would include funds for vaccine distribution, school reopening and state and local governments buckling under the strain of the pandemic.
“We have to go big, not small,” Biden told House Democrats on Tuesday. He’s signaled that he’s open to trimming his $1.9 trillion proposal but not as far as some Republicans are hoping. A group of GOP senators has put forward their own $618 billion package.
Lady on a Sofa, Harold Gilman, c 1910
At Axios, Mike Allen explains why Biden’s stimulus plan is probably going to get through Congress one way or another: Biden’s grand plan
President Biden toldRepublican senators he has “an open door and an open mind” on his $1.9 trillion coronavirus plan. But he already has the votes, and overwhelming support in the country.
Why it matters: Well, power matters. And Biden holds all of it.
Get used to this. Democrats are gleeful as they watch the media fixate on family feuds inside the GOP, while Biden pushes out executive orders and pushes through this bill on his terms.
- Biden embraces the reality that the two numbers that matter most to his presidency are coronavirus cases falling and economic growth rising.
Steve Ricchetti, counselor to the president and longtime Biden confidant, was in the Oval this week for meetings with Republican and Democratic senators, and told me that the president “reaffirmed and deepened his explanation and commitment on the numbers and the substance” of the full package.
- Ricchetti said Biden made it clear that he welcomes “fine-tuning or amendments or recommendations,” but “underscored that he’s committed to his plan and to the elements he outlined” — and to moving quickly.
What we’re watching: Ricchetti said the president wants to have “a bipartisan and unifying dialogue in the country,” including conversations he’s already had with mayors and local elected officials, “so that this isn’t just about a dialogue with senators and members of Congress. It is a dialogue with the country.”
- Ricchetti said Biden treated a GOP counterproposal “with an open mind and with respect. He was also honest … in underscoring why he proposed what he did — that he was committed to every one of the elements in his package.”
The bottom line: Democrats will dismiss any whining about Biden’s stimulus as D.C. noise or Republican hypocrisy. They’ll be right on both fronts.
The Railway, Edouard Manet, 1873
Meanwhile, Republicans are mired in a conflict over Q Anon Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Gree Kevin McCarthy has to be the most pathetic GOP leader ever–even worse than Paul Ryan or John Boehner. Yesterday, Republicans met to discuss the futures of Greene, a complete crackpot, and Liz Cheney, a relatively normal mainstream Republican who had the guts to vote for Trump’s impeachment. Both women have survived so far.
CBS News: Liz Cheney survives vote to remove her from GOP leadership.
House Republicans voted by a large margin Wednesday to allow Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney to stay on as the GOP conference chairwoman following an hours-long meeting where members aired their grievances over her vote to impeach former President Trump last month. Just 61 Republicans voted to remove Cheney from her post, while 145 voted for her to stay in a vote by secret ballot.
The vote came after Cheney told her Republican colleagues she would not apologize for her decision, according to a source familiar with the meeting. She later praised the result as a “terrific vote.”
“We’re not going to be in a situation where people can pick off any member of leadership,” she said after the meeting. “It was very resounding acknowledgment that we need to go forward together and then we need to go forward in a way that helps us beat back the really dangerous and negative Democrat policies.”
歌川国芳 by Utagawa Kuniyoshi
Greene’s situation is still somewhat up in the air, but she got a standing ovation after apologizing the her colleagues in a private meeting. From The New York Times: The G.O.P. Walks a Tightrope.
-
The extremist wing of the Republican Party has lived to fight another day. But G.O.P. leaders are in knots trying to prove that the party’s factions can all live in harmony.
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Representative Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader, refused to strip Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of her committee appointments yesterday, instead issuing a long statement that condemned her history of making extreme and violent statements but also threw a jab back at Democrats, accusing them of a “partisan power grab.”
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But at a closed-door meeting yesterday, the party’s House delegation also voted overwhelmingly to keep Representative Liz Cheney — an anti-Trump, establishment figure who has drawn fire from the party’s right wing — in her spot as the No. 3 Republican in the chamber.
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At the meeting, many House Republicans expressed dismay with Cheney for her vote to impeach Trump and her condemnation of his role in the Capitol riot on Jan. 6. Members of the far-right Freedom Caucus accused Cheney of “aiding the enemy” when she joined just nine other Republicans in voting to impeach Trump, according to people familiar with the discussion. But ultimately she held on to her leadership role easily.
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McCarthy’s unwillingness to strip Greene of her appointments, as Democrats and many Republicans have called on him to do, indicates that the G.O.P. plans to address the division in its ranks through messaging more than disciplinary action, at least for now.
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In his statement, McCarthy used strong and direct language to reject the conspiracy-minded views promulgated by Greene, but he effectively defended her right to have held them.
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“Past comments from and endorsed by Marjorie Taylor Greene on school shootings, political violence, and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories do not represent the values or beliefs of the House Republican Conference,” McCarthy said. “I condemn those comments unequivocally.”
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He said that he had met with her privately and explained “that as a member of Congress,” she would be held “to a higher standard than how she presented herself as a private citizen.”
Just a Couple of Girls by Harry Wilson Watrous, 1915
At Axios, Margaret Talev reports: Exclusive poll: Republicans favor Greene over Cheney.
Conspiracist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is far more popular than Rep. Liz Cheney among Americans who align with the Republican Party, according to a new Axios-SurveyMonkey poll.
Why it matters: As the House GOP caucus is being torn over calls to yank Cheney from congressional leadership for backing Donald Trump’s second impeachment, and strip Greene from committee assignments for her baseless conspiracy theories and violent rhetoric, these findings show how strongly Trumpism continues to define most Republicans.
- House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is much more popular with Republicans than Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the survey finds.
By the numbers: McCarthy enjoys the highest favorable versus unfavorable ratings (net favorability) of the four among Republicans, at 38%-16% (+22); followed by Greene, at 28%-18% (+10); McConnell, at 31%-46% (-15); and Cheney, at 14%-42% (-28).
- Greene is the least well known of the four, with 51% of Republicans and Republican leaners saying they don’t know enough to say whether their impression is favorable or not. Respondents have the most fully formed views of McConnell.
- Republican respondents are three times as likely to say their views align with Greene than with Cheney, but nearly one-third say they don’t align with either, and half say they don’t know enough to say.
- Republican respondents who voted for Trump in November gave McCarthy a high net favorable rating (+31) and McConnell a high net unfavorable rating (-18).
The intrigue: People who identify with Greene are disproportionately likely to have lost faith in democracy or believe despite evidence that voter fraud is rampant in their state.
How scary is that?
Democrats are moving forward on a plan to take away Greene’s committee assignments. CNN: House to vote on removing Marjorie Taylor Greene from committee assignments.
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