Friday Reads: The time has come,’ the Justices said, To talk of many things
Posted: July 29, 2022 Filed under: Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Climate change, court rulings, Democratic Politics, Department of Homeland Security, GLBT Rights, Health care reform, Injustice system, Joe Manchin, SCOTUS 18 Comments
Bathing Man. Edvard Munch.1918
Good Day Sky Dancers! And yes! It really is Friday
News broke last night that “Jan. 6 texts missing for Trump Homeland Security’s Wolf and Cuccinelli” If that’s not a sign of a series of cover-ups, I do not know what is. This is another amazing scoop by Carol D. Leonnig and Maria Sacchetti.
Text messages for President Donald Trump’s acting homeland security secretary Chad Wolf and acting deputy secretary Ken Cuccinelli are missing for a key period leading up to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, according to four people briefed on the matter and internal emails.
This discovery of missing records for the senior-most Homeland Security officials, which has not been previously reported, increases the volume of potential evidence that has vanished regarding the time around the Capitol attack.
It comes as both congressional and criminal investigators at the Justice Department seek to piece together an effort by Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the election, which culminated in a pro-Trump rally that became a violent riot in the halls of Congress.
The Department of Homeland Security notified the agency’s inspector general in late February that Wolf’s and Cuccinelli’s texts were lost in a “reset” of their government phones when they left their jobs in January 2021 in preparation for the new Biden administration, according to an internal record obtained by the Project on Government Oversight and shared with The Washington Post.
The Wounded Foot, 1909, Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida
These reset excuses are getting old. There’s some good news on the Senate for a change. First, it looks like Lt. Governor Mandela Barnes will be the Democratic Candidate for the Senate and has a wonderful chance of beating current worthless Trumper Senator Ron Johnson. Another Democratic challenger has suspended their campaign. This is from The Cap Times that follows the political news coming from Madison, Wisconsin.
The decisions from Nelson, Lasry and Godlewski to drop out have turned the Democratic U.S. Senate primary on its head and all but ensured Barnes will take on Johnson in November.
“Over a year ago, we launched this campaign to defeat Ron Johnson and return this Senate seat to the people of Wisconsin,” Godlewski said in a statement. “I stepped up because, too often, Washington overlooks so many of the challenges working families face — from affordable child care and senior care to paid family leave to prescription drug costs to reproductive freedom. I believed we needed more working moms at the U.S. Senate table who would fight like hell to make these issues a priority — I still do.”
“But it’s clear that if we want to finally send Ron Johnson packing, we must all get behind Mandela Barnes and fight together,” she continued. “I’m proud of what our 72-county campaign has accomplished, and while I may not be on the ballot this November, every issue we fought to bring front and center will be.”
Democratic Senators Schumer and Manchin outfoxed the Republicans in the Senate in a move worthy of Moscow Mitch. All the Republicans are having hissy fits. The Marriage Equality bill may get the brunt of their temper tantrums as they now say they will not vote for anything. This is from The Atlantic as written by Robinson Meyer.
Every few years, American politics astonishes you. Yesterday was one of those days.
In the late afternoon, Senator Joe Manchin announced that he had reached a compromise with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer over President Joe Biden’s long-ailing legislative agenda. In a move that seemed to shock almost all of their colleagues, the two men unveiled a nearly completed bill that will reduce the federal budget deficit, reduce greenhouse-gas pollution, invest in new energy infrastructure, and lower health-care costs.
Every few years, American politics astonishes you. Yesterday was one of those days.
In the late afternoon, Senator Joe Manchin announced that he had reached a compromise with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer over President Joe Biden’s long-ailing legislative agenda. In a move that seemed to shock almost all of their colleagues, the two men unveiled a nearly completed bill that will reduce the federal budget deficit, reduce greenhouse-gas pollution, invest in new energy infrastructure, and lower health-care costs.
And now for the main event. The Supreme court is on Summer hiatus. Several have been giving speeches, and Justice Thomas unceremoniously quit his adjunct gig because of student protests over his misogyny and homophobic messages in the context of his role in the overturn of Roe. His comments also invited the states to go after marriage equality and possibly even reinstate old sodomy laws.
This is from Axios referenced in the tweet that follows.
The big picture: After the Roe ruling was released, some GW students launched a petition urging the university to remove Thomas from teaching and cancel the constitutional law seminar he teaches at the law school. The petition was signed by over 11,000 people as of Wednesday.
- GW stood by Thomas, writing in a letter that “[b]ecause we steadfastly support the robust exchange of ideas and deliberation, and because debate is an essential part of our university’s academic and educational mission to train future leaders who are prepared to address the world’s most urgent problems, the university will neither terminate Justices Thomas’ employment nor cancel his class in response to his legal opinions.”
Go deeper: Clarence Thomas is at the peak of his power
In a tradition started by Sandra Day O’Conner, Justice Sotomayor and Cult member and Hand Maid Amy Coney Barret spoke to an audience, trying to seem as collegial as possible. This is from CNN: “Justices worry about the future of the Supreme Court — and point fingers as to who’s to blame.” Well, I’d blame Trump, everything he touches turns to shit, and this Supreme Court is full of it. Moscow Mitch is a good candidate for the appearance that settled law doesn’t matter anymore. Ariane De Vogue provides this analysis.
Limping away from one of the most significant terms in decades, justices are sending out flares expressing concern not only for the future of the Supreme Court but the country as a whole as institutional norms dissolve, tensions rise, and the court pivots right with the addition of three new members.
The justices are mostly on their summer recess now, having left behind a trail of bitter conservative-liberal splits on issues that will reshape how Americans live their lives when it comes to reproductive health, religious liberty, the environment and gun rights.
In those opinions and in public comments, members on both sides of the ideological divide are expressing reservations not about their ability to interact civilly — but about the court itself and its future.
All the while, the public doesn’t like what it sees. According to a new Marquette Law School poll, 61% of the public disapproves of how the court is handling its job. And 63% oppose the ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, according to a CNN poll released Thursday.
“If over time, the court loses all connection with the public and with public sentiment, that is a dangerous thing for a democracy,” liberal Justice Elena Kagan told an audience in Montana last week, when asked generally about what a court can do to increase public confidence.I think people are rightly suspicious if one justice leaves the court or dies and another justice takes his or her place and all of a sudden the law changes,” Kagan added. “It’s like: what’s going on here? That doesn’t seem like law”
Seascape near Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, Vincent van Gogh , 1888
You may go to the article to read the droppings of the conservative Justices, including more from Uncle Thomas and Court Nanny John Roberts. Maybe he just quit that adjunct job so he’d have more time to visit his wife in her future room in a hoosegow.
We know Brent Kavanaugh is off at some bar getting drunk and assaulting whatever will come near him. But this one from Alito basically demonstrates a great evil on the court. The Grand Inquisitor delivered a speech in Rome on “religious liberty” or, as he calls it, how I force my extremist dogma on the entire country. It was in service to Notre Dame Law School. This is from Politico. “Alito mocks foreign critics of Supreme Court abortion ruling.” How dare they mock him when it came directly to him as he flayed himself unconscious as is encouraged to do by Opus Dei. A few of these justices likely do it together over too many beers. And again, you have no doubt as to why they called it the Dark Ages.
Most of Alito’s 36-minute speech was devoted to a discussion of religious liberty, with the conservative justice arguing that support for religious liberty is eroding because so many people now say they lack religious belief.
“It is hard to convince people that religious liberty is worth defending if they don’t think that religion is a good thing that deserves protection,” Alito said, before outlining some arguments that might find traction with what he called an “increasing” number of people who reject religion or don’t consider it important.
That was after he suggested Bojo got what he deserved for mocking him. Rather arrogant or just a bad joke? And then there’s this that upset him.
“What really wounded me was when the duke of Sussex addressed the United Nations and seemed to compare the decision whose name may not be spoken with the Russian attack on Ukraine,” Alito said. “Despite this temptation, I’m not going to talk about cases from other countries.”
I wish he would just get out there and do comedy, but we’re stuck with him until he croaks. You can watch his performance on the youtube that follows.
So, I hope that the paintings of the ocean were calming because we are still in for stormy weather. There are also plenty of Republican grifters that are ready to eat their followers after fattening them up with fairy tales.
Have a great Friday and Weekend!!!
Monday Reads: A bit of this and that!
Posted: July 25, 2022 Filed under: abortion rights, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Crimes against Children, Discrimination against women, Domestic terrorism, Donald Trump, religious extremists, Reproductive Health, Reproductive Justice, Reproductive Rights, Republican Code Words and Concepts, Republican presidential politics, right wing hate grouups, Treason and Sedition Republican Style, Trump Trash, white nationalists, Women's Rights | Tags: The Great Replacement Theory and Racism 24 Comments
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Fränzi in front of Carved Chair, 1910.
Good Afternoon Sky Dancers!
There are a lot of long-form articles up today that are worth a read. I’m going to start with a few on the abortion issue since Kansas has a significant vote today. Kansas is the first state to have a Post-Roe vote. This is from The New York Times: “‘Everybody Is Dug In’: Kansans Fiercely Debate the First Post-Roe Vote on Abortion. The Aug. 2 ballot question will decide whether the State Constitution will allow legislators to ban or further restrict the procedure.”
Kansas voters will decide next week whether to remove protections of abortion rights from their State Constitution, providing the first electoral test of Americans’ attitudes on the issue since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
The election could give the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature authority to pass new abortion limits or to outlaw the procedure entirely, potentially reshaping the map of abortion access in the nation’s center. The vote, which has been planned since last year but took on far higher stakes after the federal right to abortion was eliminated, is expected to send a message far beyond Kansas as politicians nationwide weigh new abortion measures and watch for signs of how the public is reacting.
“Kansas is the bull’s-eye of the United States in terms of its geography, but it’s also the bull’s-eye where all the energy that has emerged from the Supreme Court decision has now focused,” said Pastor Randy Frazee, who leads a large church in suburban Kansas City, and who like many clergy members supports giving legislators the power to restrict abortions.
“Complementary Yellow Twin Sisters,” unknown artist
A good deal of my family is still in the Kansas City area. One of my great grandfathers was a Methodist circuit rider back in the day when Kansas had a healthy abolitionist movement. We’ll see if the old Kansas idea of Christian social justice is still there. FiveThirtyEight discusses “How The Fight To Ban Abortion Is Rooted In The ‘Great Replacement’ Theory.” It’s also firmly rooted in the idea that men own women and whatever activities they can do. This analysis was written by Alex Samuels and Monica Potts.
Throughout colonial America and into the 19th century, abortions were fairly common with the help of a midwife or other women and could be obtained until the point that you could feel movement inside, according to Lauren MacIvor Thompson, a historian of early-20th-century women’s rights and public health. Most abortions were induced through herbal or medicinal remedies and, like other medical interventions of the time, weren’t always effective or safe.
But the dynamics surrounding the procedure changed by the mid-19th century, as America’s elites began to fear a rising tide of immigrants from Ireland, Italy and other European countries (people often viewed as “inferior”), suffragists seeking new freedoms and recently freed Black people, whom these elites feared were reproducing at higher rates than the white population. Laws limiting abortion, it was believed, would ultimately force middle- and upper-class white women — who had the most access to detect and terminate unwanted pregnancies — to bear more white children.
“There were concerns that these other groups were demographically outpacing white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant women. And so they thought to limit the bodily autonomy of white women and limit access to contraception in order to force them to have children. That they felt would keep up with the demographic birth rate,” said Alex DiBranco, the co-founder and executive director of the Institute for Research on Male Supremacism.
It took time for the anti-abortion movement to attract supporters, and unlike today, religious groups were not originally an active part of it. Still, momentum built as a small but influential number of physicians began arguing that licensed male doctors — as opposed to female midwives — should care for women throughout the reproductive cycle. In the late 1850s, one of the leaders of the nascent anti-abortion movement, a surgeon named Horatio Robinson Storer, began arguing that he didn’t want the medical profession to be associated with abortion. He was able to push the relatively new American Medical Association to support his cause, and soon they were working to delegitimize midwives and enforce abortion bans. In an 1865 essay issued by order of the AMA, Storer went so far as to say of white women that “upon their loins depends the future destiny of the nation.”
The Family (John Gruen, Jane Wilson and Julia), Alice Neel, 1970
There’s a lot more in the article if you can stand to read all the misogyny, racism, and basic WASP nationalism. From Cameron Joseph, at VICE we learn exactly how deep the Republican Party’s hatred of women has become. “JD Vance Suggests People in ‘Violent’ Marriages Shouldn’t Get Divorced. The Ohio Republican Senate nominee claimed people “shift spouses like they change their underwear,” and that it had damaged a generation of children.”
“This is one of the great tricks that I think the sexual revolution pulled on the American populace, which is the idea that like, ‘well, OK, these marriages were fundamentally, you know, they were maybe even violent, but certainly they were unhappy. And so getting rid of them and making it easier for people to shift spouses like they change their underwear, that’s going to make people happier in the long term,’” Vance said.
“And maybe it worked out for the moms and dads, though I’m skeptical. But it really didn’t work out for the kids of those marriages,” Vance continued. “And that’s what I think all of us should be honest about, is we’ve run this experiment in real time. And what we have is a lot of very, very real family dysfunction that’s making our kids unhappy.”
Vance was responding to a moderator who referenced his grandparents’ relationship before asking, “What’s causing one generation to give up on fatherhood when the other one was so doggedly determined to stick it out, even in tough times?” And those comments came immediately after he brought up his grandparents’ relationship and how it differed from his parents’ generation. He described their marriage as “violent” in his best-selling book “Hillbilly Elegy,” though they’d reconciled by the time he came along and helped raise him, giving him a sense of safety and stability his mother was unable to provide.
“Culturally, something has clearly shifted. I think it’s easy but also probably true to blame the sexual revolution of the 1960s. My grandparents had an incredibly chaotic marriage in a lot of ways, but they never got divorced, right? They were together to the end, ’til death do us part. That was a really important thing to my grandmother and my grandfather. That was clearly not true by the 70s or 80s,” he said.
Terrace in Balcic, Nutzi Acontz, 1930
How about once women actually get choices, where they can take care of themselves and their families, that makes the horrid man in their life irrelevant? I endured one marriage of 20 years and believe me, never again. He’s working on his third btw.
So, one more topic I want to cover today is how the Republicans are trying to form a new kind of servitude on everyone but white Christian men and billionaires. First up from The Daily Beast: “The Four Stages of Republican Misinformation. The right has a tested formula to brainwash its base. From the Big Lie to attacking a 10-year-old rape victim, here’s how they do it.” This is written by Wajahat Ali.
The entire right-wing ecosystem unleashed its full arsenal to discredit the 10-year-old girl as a liar, intimidate her physician, demonize liberals, and continue its march backward, undeterred, in its quest to make Handmaid’s Tale cosplay a reality—in an America that subordinates and punishes women for having the audacity to control their own bodies.
To achieve its goal, the right uses a now familiar four-part strategy.
First, Republicans use any means necessary to achieve power and promote their unpopular, extremist, counter-majoritarian agenda.
Second, they create and promote disinformation and lies to frighten their base and Jedi mind-trick them into believing they are being oppressed by the actual victims.
Third, they create a specific villain, target them, and then attack them through scapegoating, smearing, and intimidation.
Fourth, they never apologize or back down once their lie is exposed, but instead, they double down, and in times of doubt, always pivot towards racism and fear-mongering.
To illustrate the strategy, look no further than the GOP’s rationalization of the Jan. 6 insurrection and embrace of the Big Lie—which gave them the successful blueprint to promote their hateful anti-abortion policies.
First, Donald Trump deliberately promoted lies and conspiracy theories about election fraud conducted by Democrats. Instead of accepting his defeat, he unleashed a premeditated, coordinated strategy to engage in a failed coup, which eventually resulted in thousands of his supporters overtaking the U.S. Capitol in an effort to overturn a free and fair election.
To get to the point where a 10-year-old rape victim has to cross state lines for an abortion, look to the GOP’s four-decade effort to kill Roe v. Wade. Republicans finally got their wish by packing the Supreme Court with right-wing extremists in black robes handpicked by the Federalist Society. Sen. Mitch McConnell stole Merrick Garland’s seat by refusing to hold a confirmation hearing, citing the need to wait until after the 2016 election. Then, he went against his own bullshit precedent and bum-rushed Justice Amy Coney Barrett on to the Court after millions of votes had already been cast in the 2020 election. That’s how they got a right-wing majority to dutifully overturn Roe, which led to Republican-controlled states imposing draconian laws that are punishing women and their health-care providers.
Second, the right-wing media ecosystem continues to amplify the Big Lie and fuel conspiracy theories, which has since resulted in a majority of GOP voters falsely believing Biden was not fairly elected. More than 100 Republicans who have won their recent primaries support the Big Lie, which has transformed into a MAGA litmus test for aspiring GOP candidates.
Anxiety, Edvard Munch,1894
There’s more. It’s a brutally factual and honest assessment. This leads to a story sent to me last night by BostonBoomer. This is from The Atlantic: “America’s Self-Obsession Is Killing Its Democracy. The U.S. still has a chance to fix itself before 2024. But when democracies start dying—as ours already has—they usually don’t recover.” It’s written by Brian Klaas. I hate to be a Debbie Downer, but we must wake everyone up to all of this.
American democracy is dying. There are plenty of medicines that would cure it. Unfortunately, our political dysfunction means we’re choosing not to use them, and as time passes, fewer treatments become available to us, even though the disease is becoming terminal. No major prodemocracy reforms have passed Congress. No key political figures who tried to overturn an American election have faced real accountability. The president who orchestrated the greatest threat to our democracy in modern times is free to run for reelection, and may well return to office.
Our current situation started with a botched diagnosis. When Trump first rose to political prominence, much of the American political class reacted with amusement, seeing him as a sideshow. Even if he won, they thought, he’d tweet like a populist firebrand while governing like a Romney Republican, constrained by the system. But for those who had watched Trump-like authoritarian strongmen rise in Turkey, India, Hungary, Poland, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Venezuela, Trump was never entertaining. He was ominously familiar.
At issue was a classic frame-of-reference problem. America’s political culture is astonishingly insular. Turn on cable news and it’s all America, all the time. Other countries occasionally make cameos, but the story is still about us. (Poland is discussed if Air Force One goes to Warsaw; Iran flits into view only in relation to Washington’s nuclear diplomacy; Madagascar appears only in cartoon form, mostly featuring talking animals that don’t actually live there.) Our self-obsession means that whenever authoritarianism rises abroad, it’s mentioned briefly, if at all. Have you ever spotted a breathless octobox of talking heads on CNN or Fox News debating the death of democracy in Turkey, Sri Lanka, or the Philippines?
That’s why most American pundits and journalists used an “outsider comes to Washington” framework to process Trump’s campaign and his presidency, when they should have been fitting every fresh fact into an “authoritarian populist” framework or a “democratic death spiral” framework. While debates raged over tax cuts and offensive tweets, the biggest story was often obscured: The system itself was at risk.
Even today, too many think of Trump more as Sarah Palin in 2012 rather than Viktor Orbán in 2022. They wrongly believe that the authoritarian threat is over and that January 6 was an isolated event from our past, rather than a mild preview of our future. That misreading is provoking an underreaction from the political establishment. And the worst may be yet to come.
This is another long read, but please check it out! I think I’ve saddled you with enough angst and anxiety for a while. Oh, and sorry, but I am on a Queen binge recently. So enjoy the killer lyrics and solo guitar by Brian May, the Freddie vocals, and the artwork that is this video.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
While the sun hangs in the sky and the desert has sand
While the waves crash in the sea and meet the land
While there’s a wind and the stars and the rainbow
‘Til the mountains crumble into the plain
Oh, yes, we’ll keep on tryin’
Tread that fine line
Oh, we’ll keep on tryin’, yeah
Just passing our time
While we live according to race, colour or creed
While we rule by blind madness and pure greed
Our lives dictated by tradition, superstition, false religion
Through the aeons, and on and on
Oh, yes, we’ll keep on tryin’
We’ll tread that fine line
Oh-oh, we’ll keep on tryin’
‘Til the end of time
‘Til the end of time
Through the sorrow, all through our splendour
Don’t take offence at my innuendo
You can be anything you want to be
Just turn yourself into anything you think that you could ever be
Be free with your tempo, be free, be free
Surrender your ego, be free, be free to yourself
If there’s a God or any kind of justice under the sky
If there’s a point, if there’s a reason to live or die
If there’s an answer to the questions, we feel bound to ask
Show yourself, destroy our fears, release your mask
Oh, yes, we’ll keep on trying
Hey, tread that fine line
Yeah, we’ll keep on smiling, yeah (yeah, yeah)
And whatever will be, will be
We’ll keep on trying
We’ll just keep on trying
‘Til the end of time
‘Til the end of time
‘Til the end of time
Season One Finale Friday Reads
Posted: July 22, 2022 Filed under: Domestic terrorism, Donald Trump, January 6 Committee Public Hearings, U.S. Politics 15 Comments
My friend John’s take on Josh Hawley today.
Good Day Sky Dancers!
We learned from last night’s January 6 Committee Hearing that we’ve got at least three new installments coming in September. I’m hoping the DOJ uses that time wisely to check on the Secret Service and all the other co-conspirators to Trump’s planned sedition and coup. Let’s wrap up the Season One Finale and examine some more exciting side stories accompanying it.
First up, from USA Today, Security footage shows Senator Josh Hawley hauling ass to escape Trump’s mob as it invaded the Capitol. These were the folks he egged on earlier at the Trump Rally to do just that! Looks like Josh probably needed a change of pants too! Although I’m not confident that my friend Peter meant quite that when he wrote “A Stain On Our History” last night.
From Peter’s Blog:
Lawyers love timelines even lapsed ones like me. The committee has done a masterful job assembling a coherent and convincing timeline of what happened at the White House on the day of the Dipshit Insurrection and the day after.
The committee established that Trump did more than just sit there watching teevee during the now infamous 187-minute gap. He made calls, cheered on the rioters, refused to denounce the violence, and continued plotting with Rudy Giuliani and various senators including the running man: Josh Hawley.
Peter also points out Trump’s troubles with his “Just Go Home” recording. There was a lot of meat in yesterday’s hearing, but the tick-tock of the lost One Hour and Eight-Seven Minutes was all it promised. This is from NPR: “January 6 panel sheds light on the 187 minutes Trump went dark during Capitol siege,” by Barbara Sprunt.
The Democrat-led committee shed light on the much-talked about but still murky 187 minutes that stretched from his speech to his supporters at 1:10 p.m. ET to his 4:17 p.m. ET video statement asking them to return home.
The hearing, led by military veterans Reps. Elaine Luria, D-Va., and Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., used witness testimony to piece together Trump’s actions the afternoon of Jan. 6, as there was not an official call log from the White House that afternoon and nothing included in the presidential daily diary.
“The chief White House photographer wanted to take pictures because it was, in her words, ‘very important for his archives and for history.’ But she was told: ‘no photographs’,” Luria said.
White House counsel and White House officials testified that Trump did not make any calls to the secretary of defense, the attorney general or the secretary of homeland security during the siege.
Although the White House call logs are empty, Trump lawyer and ally Rudy Giuliani’s call logs show at least two calls between him and the president that day. The committee also noted that other Trump calls that day are known, including several to Republican senators to urge them to delay the certification of Biden’s win.
A major theme from the hearing was how much television the former president consumed as the chaos and violence unfolded.
“President Trump sat in his dining room and watched the attack on television while his senior-most staff closest advisers and family members begged him to do what is expected of any American president,” Luria said. “When lives and our democracy hung in the balance, President Trump refused to act because of his selfish desire to stay in power.”
The committee played video clips of news coverage from Fox News, to show what Trump watched in real time as he tuned in from his dining room, just off from the Oval Office. He watched as his supporters, donning red caps and chanting his name, overwhelmed and outnumbered police as they flooded the Capitol grounds and attempted to breach the Capitol.
As I mentioned, there was also additional action around the hearings themselves. This is from The Daily Beast “DC Trucker Protesters Claim It Was One of Their People Heckling the Cop Beaten by January 6 Mob.” Those watching the hearings know that the audience includes many of the Capitol Police most affected by the mob.
A former D.C. police officer who nearly died after the angry mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was harassed by protesters with the far-right 1776 Restoration Movement (formerly The People’s Convoy) as he came to the Thursday night primetime hearing. Michael Fanone, who survived a heart attack suffered during the riot, was called “a toxic loser” and other names as he walked near the Capitol. Fanone, a commenter for CNN, had testified in the trial of one of his attackers earlier Thursday, during which he told the judge he hoped the man suffered in prison. Video from the scene showed what appeared to be a dust-up between people harassing Fanone and a man with a banner defending the insurrection hearings. One member of the anti-COVID-19 vaccine 1776 Restoration Movement admitted on a Friday morning livestream that the individual that hounded Fanone was one of their own. The group formerly called The People’s Convoy remains camped out on the National Mall, despite their top livestreamers jumping ship and many members contracting COVID-19.
Donald Trump attracts the worst of humanity. It looks like many pieces of shit were harvested by him in the Secret Service. Again, no wonder Major was biting a bunch of them. This will undoubtedly be on Season Two of the Committee hearings. This is from The New York Times: “Watchdog Informs Secret Service of Criminal Inquiry Into Missing Texts. The Homeland Security Department’s inspector general told the Secret Service to halt its internal investigation into how phone records from around January 6 were purged.”
The inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security directed the Secret Service to halt its internal search for purged texts sent by agents around the time of Jan. 6 so that it does not “interfere with an ongoing criminal investigation,” according to a letter reviewed by The New York Times.
“To ensure the integrity of our investigation, the U.S.S.S. must not engage in any further investigative activities regarding the collection and preservation of the evidence referenced above,” the Homeland Security Department’s deputy inspector general, Gladys Ayala, wrote to James M. Murray, the director of the Secret Service. “This includes immediately refraining from interviewing potential witnesses, collecting devices or taking any other action that would interfere with an ongoing criminal investigation.”
The mention of a potential criminal investigation into the deleted texts of Secret Service personnel sought by Congress and the inspector general suggested the growing seriousness of the scrutiny into the agency’s handling of records from around the time of the attack on the Capitol.
Damon Linker–writing for Eyes on the RIght–– asks the question everyone is asking these days. “What the Hell Is Going On at the Secret Service? It sure doesn’t look good”.
In what follows, I am not proposing or alleging that the U.S. Secret Service actively conspired with Donald Trump to advance his extra-legal plans to remain in power after losing the 2020 election. What I’m suggesting is that there were and are enough troubling things going on in and around the agency that an extensive investigation at the highest levels is amply warranted.
What We Know
For those who haven’t been paying attention, here is the background:
- The House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol asked the Secret Service to provide it with text messages among 24 agents in the month prior to and including January 6, 2021. On Tuesday of this week, the agency informed the committee that it had no text messages to share, because they were unintentionally deleted as the result of a message-system migration that began in late January 2021. (The Secret Service has since provided the committee with a single text message. You heard that right: one message.)
- This deletion took place despite the fact that on January 16, 2021, eleven days before the system migration began, Congress specifically instructed the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Secret Service, not to delete anything related to the events of January 6.
- People well-informed about the technical issues involved find the claim that the Secret Service accidentally deleted or lost all of the relevant text messages as part of a system migration highly implausible.
- Per reporting in the Washington Post, the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General, a watchdog agency, prepared a public alert in October 2021 about Secret Service stonewalling with regard to requests for records and texts having to do with the January 6 attack. The alert was never issued. Then, in February 2022, this same office “learned … that the Secret Service had purged nearly all cellphone texts from around the time of the [attack] but chose not to alert Congress.” We know of both of these non-alerts only because “two whistleblowers who have worked with [DHS] Inspector General Joseph V. Cuffari” have disclosed them to investigators.
- The current director of the Secret Service, James Murray, was appointed by Donald Trump in 2019. Trump originally wanted to appoint Secret Service agent Tony Ornato to be agency director, but Ornato was at that time serving as White House deputy chief of staff. That crossover from the Secret Service to senior White House operations was highly unusual. (Ornato was a central organizer of the violent removal of protesters from Lafayette Square in June 2020 so President Trump could undertake a photo-op holding a Bible.) Instead of accepting an appointment to head the agency, Ornato apparently recommended Murray for the job.
- Oh, and way back on December 31, 2020, six days before the events of January 6, Slate ran a short article, based on reporting in the Washington Post, titled, “Secret Service Shakes Up Presidential Detail Amid Fears Some Agents Aligned with Trump.” This reporting showed that prior to the Capitol Hill insurrection, the incoming administration made arrangements to have the president-elect protected by agents Biden knew personally from his time as vice president for fear that agents currently assigned to the presidential detail might remain loyal to the outgoing president.
That sure looks bad, doesn’t it? I can imagine that’s what started the Criminal probe announced yesterday by the Homeland Security IG.
The critical thing the public hearing did yesterday was that it brought other eyewitnesses to the table which could back up the incredible, earlier testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson. This is from MSNBC and MaddowBlog. It’s written by Steve Benen. “Testimony bolsters Hutchinson claims on Trump’s January 6 meltdown. The right pushed back against Cassidy Hutchinson’s recent testimony, but other witnesses now bolstered much of her assertions.”
Cassidy Hutchinson’s recent testimony to the Jan. 6 committee covered a lot of ground, but there was one story that generated a lot of conversation. The former West Wing staffer described a scene, which had been described to her by Tony Ornato, a senior Secret Service official at the time, in which Donald Trump went a little berserk after his Secret Service agents told him he was being taken back to the White House after his speech at the Ellipse, instead of being taken to the Capitol.
The comments drew plenty of pushback from the right, but nearly a month later, as The New York Times noted, the basic elements of the anecdote appear sound.
One of the most significant disclosures from Ms. Hutchinson was that there was an angry dispute between Mr. Trump and his security detail in his car when the detail refused to drive him to the Capitol to join his supporters. Testimony played on Thursday from an anonymous White House security official and a sergeant in the Metropolitan Police Department who was driving in Mr. Trump’s motorcade corroborated that claim.
“The only description I received was that the president was upset and was adamant about going to the Capitol,” Sergeant Mark Robinson said in deposition testimony. “And there was a heated discussion about that.”
Politico noted a second witness — a person with a national security background given anonymity because of “fear of retribution” — who told the committee that Ornato said the president was “irate” at not being able to the go to the Capitol.
Rep. Elaine Luria, a Democratic member of the committee, said investigators also have “evidence from multiple sources regarding an angry exchange in the presidential SUV.”
This came on the heels of a recent CNN report that quoted two Secret Service sources who confirmed that Trump “demanded to go to the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, and berated his protective detail when he didn’t get his way.”
To be sure, some of the provocative details have not yet been definitively proven. Hutchinson, for example, was told about a moment in which Trump allegedly tried to grab the steering wheel of the Suburban he was riding in, and others have not confirmed that aspect of the story.
I imagine we’ll hear more about this as the press and others dig into the stories. nother thing I’m waiting for is the judge’s verdict on Steve Bannon, whose trial was sent to the jury today after the closing hearings. o, we are on verdict watch. You may want to read this in Mother’s Jones by Dan Friedman published 10 days ago. “ Leaked Audio: Before Election Day, Bannon Said Trump Planned to Falsely Claim Victory. “That’s our strategy. He’s gonna declare himself a winner.”
Hmmmmmm.
So, those are my suggested reads today. What’s on your reading and blogging list?
My hopes for little Stevie Bannon for some background music!
Monday Reads: The Miseducation Agenda
Posted: July 18, 2022 Filed under: religious extremists, Religious Freedom, Reproductive Justice, Republican Code Words and Concepts, Republican politics, Revisionism 22 Comments
The public library in Council Bluffs opened in 1866.
Good Day Sky Dancers!
There is nothing more telling about the state of discourse in our country than the move to censor and replace materials in libraries and public schools with pure nonsense and propaganda. As a child, I spent a great deal of the summer in the old Council Bluffs, Iowa Library doing the children’s reading club. My mother took us to the local library at least once a week.
I don’t know if you can see the inscription on top, but it reads “Free Public Library.” The city built a new library, but the Carnegie-funded library is now standing as a Union Pacific Railroad Museum. I currently use another Carnegie-funded library in my neighborhood in New Orleans which features a Drag Queen storybook hour for kids. People come from out of the Parish to protest that, but everyone here is thankful for the creative time to read books together and discuss the one thing kids like to do which is play ‘dress-up.’
The Public Library–now closed–in Vinton, Iowa.
The public library in Council Bluffs when a subscription library was established for males over the age of 12. Libraries now strive to be more inclusive unless their town goes all Fahrenheit 451 on them. This is from CNN: “Iowa library temporarily closes after full-time staff leaves following complaints about ‘liberal agenda’ in book selection.” Rather than shrugging off stuff they don’t like and simply choosing not to read it, the Trumperz Thought Brownshirts would rather close the place down.
A small-town library in Iowa is scrambling to reopen after community complaints about its book selection prompted full-time staff members to resign.
The controversy started over complaints about books on display for children with information on the LGBTQ community, according to Jimmy Kelly, board chair of the Vinton Public Library.
“They would like balance that for every book that talks about LGBTQ issues, that there also be a book describing traditional gender expression,” Kelly told CNN Thursday.
“The people basically accused the library of having a liberal agenda,” he added.
…
“A reconsideration policy allows you to object to materials or programming in which the library is joined. Libraries have this, it’s very common,” she added. “It protects the library staff, it protects the library board as well as the person who is making the complaint. It is a wonderful process.”
The content complaints followed complaints last year the library had a children’s book about Vice President Kamala Harris and one written by first lady Jill Biden, but no children’s books about former President Donald Trump, according to Kelly. It resulted in McMahon’s resignation, he said.
Since resigning last year, McMahon took a job as the library director in DeWitt, about 90 miles away. She says the controversy leading to her decision to leave the Vinton community was unfortunate.
“It was very sad. I really liked working with the city department heads I worked with,” she said. “I had a great staff and there were a few people on the library board who I thought were fantastic, but it was just the atmosphere, and we all will choose a location of where we live or where we work by what matches our personalities and I just did not feel that I needed that extra stress in my life.”
McMahon said she also heard complaints there were no books about former President Donald Trump in the display.
“These were children’s books, these were picture books, and I did my due diligence. Did I miss someone? Did someone write a nice book about the former president? The answer at that point was no. I don’t know if there’s something now, I don’t know,” McMahon told CNN.
The Alvar Library in New Orleans, Lousiana
So, my first thought is just about every book in a collection is about traditional expressions of gender. It shouldn’t need to be singled out in a diatribe. My second thought was is there no wonder that no respectable children’s book author doesn’t want to write a book describing a corrupt, twice-impeached traitor with a wife that did soft porn? I mean seriously, how is that something a small child should be reading about?
But even more seriously, what is Governor Rick DeSantis doing to the Civics Curriculum in Florida? If this isn’t lies and propaganda being pushed into Public Schools what is? I have slave owners in my family tree. Many of them signed the Declaration of Independence. Two Signed the Constitution. One of the buggers that signed the US Constituion of the US was an ever not so great Uncle from South Carolina who was the Governor at one point and wrote the Fugitive Slave Act. My own Uncle helped pen and argued for the Japanese Internment Laws before SCOTUS during Wolrd War Two. The last one particularly hits home to me because my mother-in-law was Japanese so my ex-husband, daughters, and granddaughters are of Japanese descent.
I imagine that most of my relatives–including me–lived on land stolen from Indigenous people. Why hide where they fucked up? My mother took me around the country showing me where all this happened in the hopes that my knowledge would make sure it never happened again. Those dead people never had an ounce of an impact on me. However, my mother, local librarians, and public school teachers sure did. Some in ways they intended, others in ways they did not. The further I got in education, the more I learned that all of our history is not pleasant, it happened, but it should not happen again. It need not be covered up. I trust our education to determine how and when to elucidate the impact of slavery, of the Indigenous relocation pogroms and reeducations schools, Japanese internment, and the system of immigration that favors some races over others. Then, we work to tear down the remanents that harm our modern society and correct them.
From NPR: “Florida Gov. DeSantis takes aim at what he sees as indoctrination in schools” It’s always the same with these guys. Projection! Slavery and Indigenous relocation and massacre are at the heart of our history and considered women to be property until after 1849. That’s not part of the past that should be glossed-over or celebrated with some pantomimes with kind pilgrims, dancing slaves, and always happy mothers.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has made it clear how he views public schools and what they’re teaching children: He doesn’t trust them.
At a recent news conference, he returned to a familiar theme.
“Following woke indoctrination in our schools, that is a road to ruin for this country,” he said. “And we’re not going to let it happen in Florida.”
Since becoming governor in 2019, DeSantis has become known for taking combative positions on controversial issues, including education. He recently signed a number of measures aimed at preventing the sort of “indoctrination” he and his Republican supporters fear is taking place.
His “Stop Woke” act sets limits on how issues involving race may be taught. And it allows parents to sue teachers and school districts that violate it.
Another measure, the Parental Rights in Education Act, dubbed “Don’t Say Gay” by critics, bans any instruction involving sexual orientation or gender identity in the earliest grades and says beyond that it must be “age appropriate.”
In a June interview with the Christian fundamentalist group, Focus on the Family, DeSantis said he believes there’s a “concerted effort to inject … gender ideology and sexuality into the discussions with the very youngest kids.”
You know something is wrong when he’s being guided by Child Beating advocates Focus on the Family.
As first reported by the Miami Herald, the training materials were prepared for the state by groups including the Bill of Rights Institute, founded by Charles Koch and Hillsdale College, a small Christian school in Michigan that is influential in developing conservative education policies.
Segal, a teacher with 18 years in the classroom, says DeSantis is pushing a false narrative that schools are promoting a “woke” progressive agenda.
“I hate to say this,” she says, “but I feel that maybe, possibly he’s pandering to a base for re-election and that’s very hurtful.”
DeSantis is running for re-election as governor in November but is also widely seen as a likely contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.
All this comes as Florida is facing a critical teacher shortage with more than 9,500 vacant jobs statewide.
In Brevard County, school board member Jennifer Jenkins says teachers are demoralized. Many have retired or found jobs in other fields. In her district, she says there are 20 vacancies at a single school that only has 40 staff members.
“I don’t know how we’re going to continue to live in this hostile environment, how we’re going to encourage educators to enter the field and stick around,” Jenkin says. “It’s really, really scary.”
School board members have become a particular target. Jenkins has had protesters outside her home, vandalism, and threats of violence stemming for her support for a school face mask mandate.
Ending tenure at Universities is another way Republicans are seeking to stack public education facilities with whatever. From the Advocate here in Louisana: “Mark Ballard: Conservatives want to clip tenure protections for outspoken college professors.”
Louisiana began down what one legislator calls the “slippery slope” toward eliminating job-protecting tenure for college professors who mouth off in unapproved ways.
Senate President Page Cortez, R-Lafayette, Friday received designees for the Task Force on Tenure in Postsecondary Education, putting Louisiana on the path already tread by other Republican-majority states seeking to remove what some professors call protection for academic free thought and what some conservatives say is a license to indoctrinate youth with extremist thought.
“The caricature for tenure has been weaponized on the national level for political pursuits,” University of Louisiana System President Jim Henderson testified May 11 as legislators considered creating the task force. “I encourage you that the conversation around this is around the merits and not about the politics.”
The Darby Free Library in Darby, Pennsylvania is the country’s oldest library. It was founded as the Darby Library Company in 1743 .
There’s a good list there with all states trying to pass some form of the same effort. So far, none of these efforts have passed but, just like voter suppression efforts, Republicans are hot to quash public education and send tax payer money to places with religious indoctrination agendas. One of DeSantis’ civics changes includes this doozy via Axios: “Florida training program: “Misconception” that founders wanted separation of church and state”.
Driving the news: That and other content in a state-sponsored training course has raised eyebrows among some who have participated and felt it was omitting unflattering information about the country’s founders, pushing inaccuracies and centering religious ideas, per the Post.
- The Constitution explicitly bars the government from “respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Scholars interpret the passage to require a separation of church and state, per the Post.
- In another example, the training states that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were against slavery, while omitting the fact that each owned enslaved people.
It’s obvious that the Republican Party likes their base stupid. They also want us to be just as stupid and uninformed. Fox News Channel and AM radio shows do just that. Whatever can we do to stop all of this?
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Finally Friday Reads: Senator Buzzkill from West Virginia
Posted: July 15, 2022 Filed under: Climate change, January 6 Committee, Joe Manchin, John Birch Society in Charge, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics 22 Comments
Il bersaglio, Carlo Carra.1928
Good Day Sky Dancers!
There’s some good news from the Insurrection Investigation and some bad news on the Biden Domestic Plan. Let’s start with the good news. Then, I’ll drag Manchin’s ass to the virtual woodshed.
Let me just start out with one fact. The Secret Service is a mess; maybe Major had a reason for biting some of them. We’ve discovered they deleted texts when the Inspector General of Homeland Security told them not to do so. We’re also finding out they are trying to cover up the Trump Temper Tantrum in his motorcade when the Toddler-in-chief wanted to lead his ugly band of traitors to the Capitol on January 6th. This is from CNN: “First on CNN: DC police officer in Trump Jan. 6 motorcade corroborates details of heated Secret Service exchange to committee.”
A Washington, DC, police officer has corroborated to the House select committee investigating January 6, 2021, details regarding a heated exchange former President Donald Trump had with his Secret Service detail when he was told he could not go to the US Capitol after his rally, a source familiar with the matter tells CNN.
The officer with the Metropolitan Police Department was in the motorcade with the Secret Service for Trump on January 6 and recounted what was seen to committee investigators, according to the source.
A spokesperson for the committee declined to comment. A spokesperson for Metropolitan Police Department did not immediately respond to comment.
The description of the angry exchange between Trump and his Secret Service detail was a striking moment during the June testimony from former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson. Hutchinson said that she heard a secondhand account told to her by then-White House deputy chief of staff Tony Ornato that Trump was so enraged at his Secret Service detail for blocking him from going to the Capitol on the day of the insurrection that “he reached up towards the front of the vehicle to grab at the steering wheel” and “then used his free hand to lunge towards” his Secret Service lead agent Robert Engel. Hutchinson testified that Ornato told her the story in front of Engel and he did not dispute the account.
Neither of the agents named in the testimony have commented publicly on Hutchinson’s testimony. But soon after it, a Secret Service official who would only speak on background, said Engel would deny parts of the story regarding Trump grabbing at the steering wheel and lunging toward an agent on his detail. The agency has said the agents involved would testify to that effect, though they have not yet gone back to the committee to testify.
The committee is also engaging with the driver who was in the presidential SUV regarding possible testimony, the source said. A lawyer for the driver did not respond to a request for comment.
Andrew Wyeth, HANS HERR HOUSE, 1949
Trump is basically unsuited to be an adult, let alone an officeholder. Let me give you some information on those deleted text messages since I brought up the subject. This is from The Washington Post: “Secret Service erased texts from Jan. 5 and 6, 2021, official says.”
A government watchdog accused the U.S. Secret Service of erasing texts from Jan. 5 and 6, 2021, after his office requested them as part of an inquiry into the U.S. Capitol attack, according to a letter sent to lawmakers this week.
Joseph V. Cuffari, head of the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General, wrote to the leaders of the House and Senate Homeland Security committees indicating that the text messages have vanished and that efforts to investigate the Jan. 6, 2021, attack were being hindered.
“The Department notified us that many U.S. Secret Service (USSS) text messages, from January 5 and 6, 2021 were erased as part of a device-replacement program,” he wrote in a letter dated Wednesday and obtained by The Washington Post. The letter was earlier reported on by the Intercept and CNN.
Cuffari emphasized that the erasures came “after” the Office of Inspector General requested copies of the text messages for its own investigation, and signaled that they were part of a pattern of DHS resistance to his inquiries. Staff members are required by law to surrender records so that he can audit the sprawling national security agency, but he said they have “repeatedly” refused to provide them until an attorney reviews them.
“This review led to weeks-long delays in OIG obtaining records and created confusion over whether all records had been produced,” he wrote, and offered to brief the House and Senate committees on the “access issues.”
Yuri Petrovich Kugach,
“Autumn”, 1961
Writing for Axios, Andrew Solender believes the “Jan. 6 panel aims to “reconstruct” deleted Secret Service texts.”
“It’s concerning, obviously. If there’s a way we can reconstruct the texts or what have you, we will,” Thompson, who also chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, told Axios at the Capitol on Thursday.
-
Thompson said the inspector general “was not clear as to how” the texts were deleted, adding that the committee “asked them some time ago to look at it.”
-
Asked if the committee would bring in Secret Service agents to try to reconstruct the texts, he said, “I think it’s important for us to get as much information about how this discrepancy occurred.”
-
Thompson said the Jan. 6 panel has not yet interviewed Ornato and Robert Engel, another agent mentioned in Hutchinson’s testimony, but said, “We’ve been talking to them.”
So, Senator Joe Manchin did it again. He basically stopped the Biden Domestic plan from become anything more than a few healthcare items. He tanked the climate change agenda.
From The New York Times article in the above tweet: “How One Senator Doomed the Democrats’ Climate Plan. Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia led his party and his president through months of tortured talks, with nothing to show for it as the planet dangerously heats up.”
First, he killed a plan that would have forced power plants to clean up their climate-warming pollution. Then, he shattered an effort to help consumers pay for electric vehicles. And, finally, he said he could not support government incentives for solar and wind companies or any of the other provisions that the rest of his party and his president say are vital to ensure a livable planet.
Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, who took more campaign cash from the oil and gas industry than any other senator, and who became a millionaire from his family coal business, independently blew up the Democratic Party’s legislative plans to fight climate change. The swing Democratic vote in an evenly divided Senate, Mr. Manchin led his party through months of tortured negotiations that collapsed on Thursday night, a yearlong wild goose chase that produced nothing as the Earth warms to dangerous levels.
“It seems odd that Manchin would choose as his legacy to be the one man who single-handedly doomed humanity,” said John Podesta, a former senior counselor to President Barack Obama and founder of the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank.
Privately, Senate Democratic staff members seethed and sobbed on Thursday night, after more than a year of working nights and weekends to scale back, water down, trim and tailor the climate legislation to Mr. Manchin’s exact specifications, only to have it rejected inches from the finish line.
“Rage keeps me from tears,” Senator Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts and a longtime advocate for climate legislation, wrote on Twitter late Thursday.
“October and Cape Cod”, Edward Hopper
We have to pick up more seats in the Senate this fall to make this jerk irrelevant. We have this piece from Ronald Brownstein from The Atlantic: “Mother Nature Dissents. From Texas to California, voters are enduring rude wake-up calls about the future of our country.”
Mother nature is entering a dissenting opinion on last month’s Supreme Court decision that weakened the federal government’s ability to combat climate change.
With record heat in Texas that is testing the state’s power grid, a California wildfire that has threatened an ancient grove of sequoias considered a foundation stone of the national-park system, and persistent drought across the West that is forcing unprecedented cutbacks in water deliveries from the Colorado River, the summer of 2022 already is shaping up as another season of extreme and dangerous environmental conditions.
The paradox is that precisely as these events are dramatizing the rising costs of inaction on climate change, Washington faces more difficulty in taking action. That’s not only because of the Supreme Court but also because of the resistance to sweeping legislation in the Senate from every Republican as well as Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, who represents one of the top coal-producing states, West Virginia. Adding to the strain: The states most integrated into the existing fossil-fuel economy—almost all of them controlled by Republicans—are escalating their efforts to block action on climate change from the federal government and even the private sector.
In all of these ways, both the magnitude of the threat and the difficulty of responding to it are simultaneously rising—a trend that climate scientists find equally frustrating and frightening.
“In a world where facts are no longer the currency, it actually is very hard to make arguments in favor of doing what seems very logical,” Kathy Jacobs, the director of the Center for Climate Adaptation Science and Solutions at the University of Arizona, told me. “People are questioning really fundamental scientific principles and/or just choosing to ignore them. This post-fact world we are operating in makes dealing with this problem much more difficult.”
Ends of Barns, 1922, Georgia O’Keeffe
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and his staff told Democratic leadership on Thursday that he’s not willing to support major climate and tax provisions in a sweeping Biden agenda bill, according to a Democrat briefed on the conversations.
Instead, Manchin, a key centrist who holds the swing vote in the 50-50 Senate, said he is willing to back only a filibuster-proof economic bill with drug pricing and a two-year extension of funding under the Affordable Care Act, the source said.
Manchin’s move upends lengthy negotiations with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., most likely forcing the party to scrap climate change policies and new taxes and delivering a major blow to some of President Joe Biden’s priorities heading into an already challenging midterm election landscape for Democrats this fall.
Manchin “was explicit that he will not support a bill in August” with energy or climate provisions or one “closing tax loopholes exploited by the wealthiest” and large corporations, “despite his support for those specific things throughout the entire negotiation,” said the Democrat briefed about the discussions.
Democrats hope to pass a bill before September to prevent major insurance premium hikes under the Affordable Care Act, which could be difficult to avert if they don’t act quickly.
“Political headlines are of no value to the millions of Americans struggling to afford groceries and gas as inflation soars to 9.1%,” Manchin spokesperson Sam Runyon told NBC News in a statement. “Senator Manchin believes it’s time for leaders to put political agendas aside, reevaluate and adjust to the economic realities the country faces to avoid taking steps that add fuel to the inflation fire.”
A Democratic aide familiar with the talks said Manchin conveyed to Democratic leadership that he could support a package that includes climate and tax provisions as long as they’re paid for — or that he would just want a bill on prescription drugs and ACA money.
I’m not sure how to precisely describe the behavior of the Senator. His actions make him appear quite selfish and power-hungry.
Okay, one more piece of good breaking news then I turn our conversation over to you! “Exclusive: Fulton County DA sends ‘target’ letters to Trump allies in Georgia investigation” as reported by Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman.
In the latest sign that she is moving rapidly in her investigation into Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has sent so-called “target” letters to prominent Georgia Republicans informing them they could be indicted for their role in a scheme to appoint alternate electors pledged to the former president despite Joe Biden’s victory in the state, according to legal sources familiar with the matter.
The move by Willis, a Democrat, threatens to have major political implications in a crucial battleground state with high-profile races for governor and the U.S. Senate this fall. Among the recipients of the target letters, the sources said, are GOP state Sen. Burt Jones, Gov. Brian Kemp’s running mate for lieutenant governor, David Shafer, the chairman of the Georgia Republican Party, and state Sen. Brandon Beach.
Jones and Shafer were among those who participate in a closed-door meeting at the state Capitol on Dec. 14, 2020, in which 16 Georgia Republicans selected themselves as the electors for the state, although they had no legal basis for doing so. Shafer, according to a source who was present, presided over the meeting, conducting it as though it was an official proceeding, in which those present voted themselves as the bona fide electors in Georgia — and then signed their names to a declaration to that effect that was sent to the National Archives.
The offices or spokespersons for Jones, Shafer and Beach did not respond to requests for comment. Willis, in an interview, declined any comment on the target letters. But she confirmed she is considering another potentially controversial move: requesting that Trump himself testify under oath to the special grand jury that is investigating his conduct.
“Yes,” said Willis when asked if there was any chance Trump will be called to testify. “I think it’s something that we’re still weighing and evaluating.” She also said she had spoken to Dwight Thomas, a veteran local defense lawyer who has been retained to represent Trump, as recently as Thursday. She declined to say what they talked about. Thomas did not respond to requests for comment.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
dakinikat
ecocatwoman
jjlo
mablue2
Mama Lopez
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
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