By Sandra Bierman
On Friday, the Bab Al-Salama border crossing into Syria was almost empty. A single ambulance with flashing lights was waiting to enter. The only Syrians crossing back were those being returned to their families in body bags.
Mostly Monday Reads: Shooting Down the Sky
Posted: February 13, 2023 Filed under: just because | Tags: Hervé Télémaque, Steve Bannon, Ugly Americans, Unidentified Space Objects, Warren Zevon 8 Comments
Hervé Télémaque
No Title (The Ugly American)
1962/64, MoMA
Good Day Sky Dancers!
Each new day I sit here, reading the news, thinking about which headlines are most substantive and meaningful, I soon discover we’ve got a bizarre timeline going on. Every day gets more surreal. I’m writing songs again to deal with it. It’s probably why I’ve been so inspired by the works of Warren Zevon. I worked on “Living Next Door to the Ugly American Inn” this week.
Facebook punished me for using that term to describe Airbnb invaders and the local tourist pimps and whores that drag them into our neighborhoods. Facebook told me “Ugly American” was a slur instead of an essential politically-themed novel written in 1958 by Eugene Burdick and William Lederer. The movie of the same name came out in 1964 featuring Marlon Brando. It’s also the name of an American adult animated sitcom created by Devin Clark and developed by David M. Stern. That came out in 2010 on Adult Swim. It’s also a video game. I’ll probably be suspended for publishing this there, but who cares?
The novel so moved President Eisenhower that he created additional protocols on how diplomatic personnel should behave abroad. It focused on making the corps understand the culture and values of where they were stationed. It was cited in LBJ’s remarks in his speech at the University of Michigan. The speech is known as The Great Society Speech.
A few years ago we were greatly concerned about the “Ugly American.” Today we must act to prevent an ugly America.
Hervé Télémaque,
“One of the 36,000 Marines over our Antilles”
Those words have never been so valid as at this moment. LBJ spoke of pollution and its threat to the country’s national resources. Today it seems more accurate to define it in terms of how our society interacts with one another in the political environment. It seems odd that I think of it in terms of how Americans from the rest of the country tend to act when they stay in our neighborhoods instead of the Motel Six by the airport. Although I spent enough time in Europe and saw the behavior. I tried hard to be a chameleon wherever I went, lest I be considered among that number. I got so good at it that I was frequently mistaken for a Canadian by folks that didn’t know I came from Omaha when I attended the University of Nebraska. Then they said, you must be from the east. I was like, yup, eastern Nebraska, which is Omaha.
Many of these folks pimping out houses in neighborhoods don’t even live here. Lots of them are LLCs that aren’t located here.
I cannot understand how someone could do that to their neighbors and neighborhood. Then, I saw this and realized that money changes everything. (Thank you, Cyndy Lauper.)
I thought it couldn’t get worse on the Parade routes uptown, where the visiting Chads and Karens try to stake out viewing areas with chairs, red spray paint, and all kinds of things that the city daily picks up and dumps. Wow, do they have fits when that happens? But it’s in our law here. So, this is the next thing reported by one of our local TV news krewe at WWL. “Mardi Gras’ newest hustlers are making money holding spots on the parade route. Some people are making hundreds, even thousands of dollars holding spots on the parade route.” I’m not sure this is what is meant in Economics texts as a “Problem of the Commons”. There are always collaborators.
And nobody does it better than Freebird Dittmar.
“Gonna have to start petitioning to have Mardi Gras three times a year and I can stop going to work on these houses!” Dittmar, who works as a carpenter outside of Carnival Season, said.
It’s his second year holding down a spot on the parade route and his services don’t come cheap. This year, he’s got three “big groups” paying him $2,500 each to hold their St. Charles Avenue spots and one group paying another $800 for a spot on the Endymion route.
Just a block away, Vera Hendriks and Alex Foley are holding a spot for their boss, who’s paying them with tickets to MOM’s Ball.
And while they were eating lunch, they got an offer to expand their turf for another $100 each.
“Once you’re out here you’ll meet people who offer you money to just sit here,” Foley said. “I haven’t had an experience like this.”
But it’s not just the hustlers making money on the route. Working from home has revolutionized how people stake out parade spots for people like Michael Scruggs, who was technically on the clock Friday morning.
“Unfortunately not all my clients are on Louisiana time, so they don’t realize it’s Mardi Gras time,” Scruggs said as he answered emails from a folding chair on the neutral ground.”
And if you’re thinking about getting in on the game, Freebird has some advice for you.
“Stay out of it! It’s mine,” he said with a laugh. “Or do it somewhere else. Uptown is my route!”
“Clients!” Give me a fucking break!
Red Cross (You and Me)
1985,Hervé Télémaque
Let me just take a moment to talk about the artist of the paintings here. This is from an artist that just died last November, as reported by ARTnews. Please don’t mention this to Ron DeSantis, or we’ll have museum collection bans next. “Hervé Télémaque, Artist Whose Piercing Work About Racism and Colonialism Brought Him a Late-Career Rise, Dies at 85.”
Hervé Télémaque, a French artist born in Haiti whose poignant works tackling racism and colonialism have only recently garnered mainstream recognition in Europe and the U.S., died in a hospital near Paris on Thursday. He was 85.
The Aspen Art Museum in Colorado, which is now hosting a version of Télémaque survey that first appeared at the Serpentine Galleries in London, announced Télémaque’s passing. The museum said he had been battling an autoimmune disorder.
Télémaque has proven a hard figure to classify. During the ’60s, he was grouped in with the Narrative Figuration movement, a French style that sought to revive representational painting as a leftist political strategy. He has also been considered a Pop artist, and in a recent show presenting a global history of Surrealism, he was labeled a tangential figure of that style, too.
But to say Télémaque is a member of any of these movements would not adequately capture the vibrancy and the complexity of his art, which often took up histories of racism and colonialism—and their continued influence on the present—in striking, ambiguous ways
Okay, now, some Gratuitous Warren Zevon music.
I heard Woodrow Wilson’s guns
I heard Maria crying
Late last night I heard the news
That Veracruz was dying
Veracruz was dying
Someone called Maria’s name
I swear it was my father’s voice
Saying, “If you stay, you’ll all be slain
You must leave now, you have no choice”
Take the servants and ride west
Keep the child close to your chest
When the American troops withdraw
Let Zapata take the rest
So, why am I writing a Song called “Shooting Down the Sky”? Well, it’s not often you live in times where Reuters reports this. “Ruling out aliens? Senior U.S. general says not ruling out anything yet“. I’m curious why no one is telling us about these four unidentified sky objects that Biden called NORAD to shoot down. After all, I probably paid for a bit of an F-22 raptor, even if it’s only part of a bolt.
The U.S. Air Force general overseeing North American airspace said on Sunday after a series of shoot-downs of unidentified objects that he would not rule out aliens or any other explanation yet, deferring to U.S. intelligence experts.
Asked whether he had ruled out an extraterrestrial origin for three airborne objects shot down by U.S. warplanes in as many days, General Glen VanHerck said: “I’ll let the intel community and the counterintelligence community figure that out. I haven’t ruled out anything.”
Okee dokee, then.
Hervé Télémaque: “Fonds d’actualité No1 (Current Affairs No1)”
The Chinese aren’t wasting time playing tit-for-tat in the big game in the sky. This is from the Washington Post. “China says at least 10 U.S. balloons have flown in its airspace since 2022.” I thought Donald Trump had created the US Space Force so we could have some really high-tech budget busters to deal with them. I guess it was all about the uniforms, decals, and soundbites.
China’s Foreign Ministry on Monday said the United States has sent at least 10 unsanctioned balloons into Chinese airspace since last year, as the two countries feud over a Chinese airship discovered and shot down by the U.S. military this month. The United States denied the allegation.
Hitting back at allegations that Beijing had used the balloon, discovered floating over the western United States, for surveillance, Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said in a press briefing that it was “common” for U.S. high-altitude balloons to fly into other countries’ airspace.
“The United States should first reflect on itself and change course, rather than slander, discredit or incite confrontation,” Wang said.
The comments come after a U.S. fighter jet shot down another unknown object flying off the coast of Alaska on Friday. U.S. and Canadian officials then said a U.S. fighter jet shot down an unidentified object in Canadian airspace on Saturday. A fourth object was shot down over Lake Huron on Sunday afternoon.
Hervé Télémaque:
“Inventaire, un homme d’intérieur”
So, our next big conflict is about balloons? Isn’t that a bit like World War 1? At least the Zeppellins Airships were visually interesting. The BBC sums it up here. “Mystery surrounds objects shot down by US military.” This is not what all those 90s movies told me to expect. Will Smith, the nation turns its lonely eyes to you.
The US military is unsure what three flying objects it shot out of the skies over North America were – and how they were able to stay aloft.
President Joe Biden ordered another object – the fourth in total this month – to be downed on Sunday.
As it was travelling at 20,000ft (6,100m), it could have interfered with commercial air traffic, the US said.
A military commander said it could be a “gaseous type of balloon” or “some type of a propulsion system”.
He added he could not rule out that the objects were extra-terrestrials.
The latest object – shot down over Lake Huron in Michigan near the Canadian border – has been described by defence officials as an unmanned “octagonal structure” with strings attached to it.
It was downed by a missile fired from an F-16 fighter jet at 14:42 local time (19:42 GMT).
The incident raises further questions about the spate of high-altitude objects that have been shot down over North America this month.
US Northern Command Commander General Glen VanHerck said that there was no indication of any threat.
“I’m not going to categorise them as balloons. We’re calling them objects for a reason,” he said.
“What we are seeing is very, very small objects that produce a very, very low radar cross-section,” he added.
Speculation as to what the objects may be has intensified in recent days.
Well, of course, speculation is intensifying! You’re not telling us a damned thing! Paging, Ron Serling!!!
Ugly Americans: Apocalypsegeddon Xbox Live and PSN
Cartoon!
Okay, one more thing about hot bags of air, and then I’m done. “Steve Bannon Ran Up Huge Legal Bills and Stiffed His Lawyers”. His Godfather, Donnie Trumpo, taught him well.
Steve Bannon—the nativist American media personality who’s backed by a Chinese billionaire—hasn’t paid the lawyers who spent years defending him against an onslaught of criminal charges, according to three sources who spoke exclusively to The Daily Beast.
With massive legal bills still outstanding, Bannon is now scrambling to find new attorneys, as he faces a looming trial over the way he scammed the MAGA crowd with a dubious plan to build a privately funded U.S.-Mexico border wall.
Bannon’s refusal to fully pay his bills has stunned some of his close advisers who’ve stuck around for years.
“I don’t have any reason to believe he doesn’t have money,” one associate said.
Then again, Bannon is also a known grifter and liar with a long history of peddling disinformation.
You don’t get any uglier than Steve Bannon. That’s for sure!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
More gratuitous Warren Zevon
Lazy Caturday Reads
Posted: February 11, 2023 Filed under: cat art, caturday, Donald Trump, just because | Tags: Alaska, children with guns, classified documents, Evan Corcoran, grand jury, gun violence, Mike Pence, Turkey/Syria earthquake, unidentified high altitude object 28 Comments
By Adrie Martens
Happy Caturday!!
I have a mixed bag of reads for you today: some stories about the terrible earthquake in Turkey and Syria, including a long read about the situation in Syria; a long read about the case of a six-year-old in Virginia who shot his teacher; a story about the still-unidentified flying object shot down over Alaska, and some new Trump investigation stories.
Turkey-Syria Earthquake
AP News: Survivors still being found as quake death toll tops 25,000.
ANTAKYA, Turkey (AP) — Rescue crews on Saturday pulled more survivors, including entire families, from toppled buildings despite diminishing hopes as the death toll of the enormous quake that struck a border region of Turkey and Syria five days ago surpassed 25,000.
Dramatic rescues were being broadcast on Turkish television, including the rescue of the Narli family in central Kahramanmaras 133 hours after the 7.8-magnitude temblor struck Monday. First, 12-year-old Nehir Naz Narli was saved, then both of her parents.
That followed the rescue earlier in the day of a family of five from a mound of debris in the hard-hit town of Nurdagi, in Gaziantep province, TV network HaberTurk reported. Rescuers cheered and chanted, “God is Great!” as the last family member, the father, was lifted to safety.
Turkish President Recep Tayypi Erdogan, on a tour of quake-stricken cities, raised the death toll in Turkey to 21,848, which pushed the total number of dead across the region, including government and rebel-held parts of Syria, to 25,401….
Still, the day brought one astonishing rescue after another, numbering more than a dozen.
Melisa Ulku, a woman in her 20s, was extricated from the rubble in Elbistan in the 132th hour since the quake, following the rescue of another person at the same site in the same hour. Ahead of her rescue, police announced that people shouldn’t cheer or clap in order to not interfere with other rescue efforts nearby. She was covered in a thermal blanket on a stretcher. Rescuers were hugging. Some shouted “God is great!”
Just an hour earlier, a 3-year-old girl and her father were pulled from debris in the town of Islahiye, also in Gaziantep province, and soon after a 7-year-old girl was rescued in the province of Hatay.
The rescues brought shimmers of joy amid overwhelming devastation days after Monday’s 7.8-magnitude quake and a powerful aftershock hours later caused thousands of buildings to collapse, killing more than 25,000, injuring another 80,000 and leaving millions homeless.
From Twitter:
This is a long Washington Post article by Louisa Loveluck about the earthquake aftermath in Syria: In earthquake-battered Syria, a desperate wait for help that never came.
JINDERIS, Syria — It took four days and nights after the earthquake for the rubble to fall silent here. The strongest voices belonged to the women, residents said. Parted from their children, or fighting to save them, they screamed until their lungs gave out.
In this forgotten pocket of rebel-held northwest Syria, there were no international rescue workers to save them. No aid shipments brought painkillers to the survivors when stocks ran low. Just six miles away, across the border in Turkey, thousands of tons of relief poured in; support teams from as far away as Taiwan answered the Turkish government’s call for help. But Syria, divided against itself and isolated from much of the world, was left to pick up the pieces alone, as it has again and again over more than a decade of war and dislocation.
In the shattered town of Jinderis, at least 850 bodies had been recovered by Friday morning. Although hundreds are still missing, few believed there were any lives left to save. “We needed help here, we asked for help here,” said the town’s mayor, Mahmoud Hafar. “It never came.”
On a rare visit to this Syrian enclave, controlled by Turkish-backed armed groups, The Washington Post found communities gripped by shock and bewilderment, and very much alone. In Jinderis, fathers stood watch over the remains of their homes and told of waking up to find their wives and children dead. As hulking excavators clawed the rubble, searching for a 13-year old boy, a man asked reporters to help him contact the United Nations for help. “Maybe they don’t know what happened in Jinderis,” he said. “No one could see this and not come here.”
This part of Syria has endured crisis after crisis, home to millions of people who have braved war and displacement, hunger and disease. Even before the earthquake, 4.1 million here required humanitarian assistance.
Heartbreaking. Read the rest at the WaPo. There are also many photographs the story.
USA Today has a story about how the Turkey/Syria earthquake compares to others in recent history:100 years of earthquakes: Turkey, Syria disaster could be among this century’s worst.
More than 25,000 people have been killed and the death toll is expected to rise after two earthquakes struck Turkey and Syria on Feb. 6. The quakes have become one of this century’s worst natural disasters.
More than 75,000 people have been injured. International rescue efforts from the U.N. and other organizations continue.
The two earthquakes, near the Syrian border, had magnitudes of 7.8 and 7.5. They struck about nine hours apart and were the strongest quakes recorded in Turkey in 80 years.
USA TODAY examined earthquake patterns over the past 100 years and how the unfolding tragedy in Turkey and Syria compares. Here is what we found.
See maps and charts at the USA Today link.
The Virginia Six-Year Old Who Shot His Teacher
This is a very interesting investigative piece about the case of a six-year-old boy who shot his first-grade teacher. I can’t do it justice with excerpts, but I’ll give you a taste, and hope you’ll go read the rest.
Hannah Natanson and Justin Jouvenal at The Washington Post: How Richneck Elementary failed to stop a 6-year-old from shooting his teacher.
Teachers’ fears about the 6-year-old date backto his kindergarten year, when he tried to strangle his teacher, according to a letter Zwerner’s attorney sent to the school system Jan. 24 announcing her intent to sue. The letter was first reported by the Daily Press.
“The shooter had been removed from the school a year prior after he chokedhis teacher until she couldn’t breathe,” says the letter, obtained by The Post through a public records request. It was not immediately clear how a boy so young could have choked an adult. The Post was not able to learn other details of the incident and authorities have not released information about the boy.
Early this fall, as Richneck teachers sought to settle their new crop of students inside the low-slung red-brick building nestled amid trees, news of the 6-year-old’s troubled history circulated swiftly among the staff, according to text messages between teachers.
Less than a week into September, officials switched the 6-year-old to a half-day schedule due to misbehavior — but administrators were already lagging in efforts to accommodate the student, according to Toscano’s letter and to text messages sent between Zwerner and a friend of hers who teaches at the school.
It was not clear what specific incident triggered the schedule change.Toscano wrote in her letter that the 6-year-old “constantly cursed at the staff and teachers and then one day took off his belt on the playground and chased kids trying to whip them.”
What was going on in this child’s home life? It certainly seems as if abuse could be a clue to his behavior. And how was he able to get his hands on his mother’s gun, which she claimed was locked in her bedroom closet?
Text messages and a photo shared between teachers show that a student in Zwerner’s class reportedly hit a teacher so hard with a chair that her legs became dotted with green and purple bruises — and that, at another point, a kindergartner was accused of pushing a pregnant teacher to the ground and kicking her in the stomach so hard that she feared for her unborn child, two weeks shy of giving birth. It was not immediately clear how administrators responded to those episodes, although one educator wrote in a text this fall that the bruised teacher had “heard nothing from admin.”
On Nov. 9, the second-grade teacher wrote in a text message to a colleague that she was applying to work in another district because of “how bad the first graders are right now put together with the fact we don’t have doors.”
Yes, you read that right. The classrooms didn’t have doors because the administration said it would cost too much to put them in.
Diane Toscano, Zwerner’s lawyer, has said teachers relayed several warnings to administrators on the morning of the shooting, including at least three reports that the boy had a gun. The Post interviewed a kindergartner who said the boy threatened to punch her at lunch that day and that she informed a staffer — but that the staffer did little more than give the boy a verbal warning.
In the direct aftermath of the shooting, two second-grade classes were left briefly wandering the hallways in search of a safe place to hide because their classroom was not equipped with doors and they had not rehearsed safety drills, according to one second-grade teacher, one fifth-grade teacher and a parent of a second-grade student, as well as text messages obtained by The Post. A second-grade teacher told The Post she had asked to have doors installed but administrators refused, saying the doors would be too expensive.
As someone who attended elementary school in the 1950s, I can’t begin to comprehend what is happening these days. Not only do we have teenagers and adults committing school shootings; there are also 6-10 year-old kid bringing guns to school and even killing other kids. I hope you’ll read this story; it’s both frightening and fascinating.
High-Altitude Flying Object Over Alaska
The New York Times: U.S. Shoots Down High-Altitude Object Over Alaska.
The Pentagon said it shot down an unidentified object over frozen waters around Alaska on Friday at the order of President Biden, less than a week after a U.S. fighter jet brought down a Chinese spy balloon over the Atlantic in an episode that increased tensions between Washington and Beijing.
Unknown artist
U.S. officials said they could not immediately confirm whether the object was a balloon, but it was traveling at an altitude that made it a potential threat to civilian aircraft.
At a news conference on Friday, John F. Kirby, a White House spokesman, said Mr. Biden ordered the unidentified object near Alaska downed “out of an abundance of caution.” [….]
Pentagon officials said they were able to immediately bring down the object over water, so they could easily avoid the dilemma posed by the spy balloon drifting over populated areas, which had prompted commanders to recommend to Mr. Biden to wait to shoot down the machine in order to avoid any chance of debris hitting people on the ground.
Three U.S. officials said that as of Friday evening, the government did not know who owned or sent the object seen above Alaska, which, like the Chinese balloon last week, was shot down by an F-22 fighter jet using a Sidewinder air-to-air missile.
Several officials said they believed the object shot down Friday was a balloon, but a Defense Department official said it broke into pieces when it hit the frozen sea, which added to the mystery of whether it was indeed a balloon, a drone or something else.
Mr. Kirby said that the object was “much, much smaller than the spy balloon that we took down last Saturday” and that “the way it was described to me was roughly the size of a small car, as opposed to the payload that was like two or three buses.”
So we still don’t know what this object was. Maybe we’ll find out today.
Trump-Pence News
CNN: Trump team turns over additional classified records and laptop to federal prosecutors.
Former President Donald Trump’s legal team turned over more materials with classified markings and a laptop belonging to an aide to federal prosecutors in recent months, multiple sources familiar with the investigation told CNN.
The Trump attorneys also handed over an empty folder marked “Classified Evening Briefing,” sources said.
The previously undisclosed handovers – from December and January – suggest the protracted effort by the Justice Department to repossess records from Trump’s presidency may not be done.
The Trump attorneys discovered pages with classified markingsin December, while searching through boxes at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago residence. The lawyers subsequently handed the materials over to the Justice Department.
A Trump aide had previously copied those same pages onto a thumb drive and laptop, not realizing they were classified, sources said. The laptop, which belonged to an aide, who works for Save America PAC, and the thumb drive were also given to investigators in January.
By Ophelia Redpath
Excuse me, how do we know that Trump didn’t order the aide to copy the documents? And how do we know there aren’t other electronic copies out there? I just can’t believe that Trump never shared any of those stolen documents.
NPR: FBI finds an additional classified document during ‘consensual’ search of Pence’s home.
The FBI confirmed it found an additional classified document during a search Friday at the Indiana home of former Vice President Mike Pence.
The search for classified documents as well as materials that aren’t classified but are subject to the Presidential Records Act lasted about five hours. Agents removed one document with classified markings plus six additional pages without classification markings.
The consensual search follows a discovery, relayed by Pence’s representatives to the National Archives and Records Administration last month, that documents bearing classified markings had been, they said, “inadvertently” boxed up and found in the former vice president’s home in Indiana.
This is big news from The New York Times: Trump Lawyer in Mar-a-Lago Search Appeared Before Grand Jury.
A lawyer for former President Donald J. Trump appeared before a federal grand jury investigating his handling of sensitive government documents that he took to his Mar-a-Lago club and residence after he left office, two people briefed on the matter said on Friday.
The lawyer, M. Evan Corcoran, a member of Mr. Trump’s legal team who handled his responses to the government over its repeated requests for the return of such records, could offer firsthand knowledge of the search the F.B.I. undertook in August and any insights into whether Mr. Trump knew that documents remained at the club.
Mr. Corcoran did not respond to a request for comment. And it was not immediately clear when and under what circumstances he appeared. His appearance was reported earlier by Bloomberg News.
Mr. Corcoran has raised eyebrows within the Justice Department for his statements to federal officials assuring them that Mr. Trump had returned all classified materials in his possession.
As part of Mr. Trump’s legal team, Mr. Corcoran was in discussions with the Justice Department in January 2022, after the National Archives and Records Administration recovered 15 boxes of presidential material from Mar-a-Lago containing nearly 200 individual classified documents.
In May 2022, Mr. Corcoran was in touch with the department after a grand jury subpoena was issued for any remaining classified material that Mr. Trump retained. He was also on hand the next month when the top Justice Department counterintelligence official visited Mar-a-Lago and collected more than 30 additional classified documents.
At the time, another lawyer working for Mr. Trump, Christina Bobb, signed a statement attesting that a “diligent search” for all remaining classified documents had been conducted and that what was turned over was all that remained. The attestation was drafted by Mr. Corcoran, but Ms. Bobb added language to it to make it less ironclad before signing it, according to people familiar with what took place.
Olesya Serzhantova_(Serjantova)
Former Watergate prosecutor Nick Akerman explained to MSNBC’s Joy Reid the significance of former Vice President Mike Pence’s cooperation with the Justice Department, as it subpoenas him for information in the January 6 investigation.
Above all, Akerman said, we are approaching the unprecedented possibility that a former vice president may have to testify at the criminal trial of his former president.
“If you had [Pence], you know, as you said, for hours and hours, and hours, what would you want to ask him?” asked Reid. “Myself personally, I would also want to know what the Secret Service agents were saying, did you trust them? Because this could be about Donald Trump, but it could also be about some of them. What would you want to know?”
“Yeah, I think we want to know exactly what his suspicion was based on,” said Akerman. “I mean, why did he think they were trying to whisk him out of the Capitol so quickly? Was it one of the people that was close to Donald Trump that was in charge of doing that? Did somebody say something to him? I mean, I’m sure he knew that part of this whole plot was to stop that vote, stop the Congress from considering the electoral count. And that one way to do it was to get him off premises, get him out of the Capitol. So I think, you know, he probably did have other conversations with people.”
“I mean, don’t forget, once Mike Pence told him there’s no way no how I’m gonna do this, Donald Trump knew that the only way he was going to stop this whole count was through the violence, through the disruption in the chaos that ensued at the Capitol and that one of the ways to do it of course was to get Mike Pence out of the Capitol as a result of all this violence and used the Secret Service as a foil and an excuse to do that,” continued Akerman.
I hope you find something here that interests you. What other stories have you been following?
Thursday Reads
Posted: February 9, 2023 Filed under: just because 16 CommentsGood Morning!!
This is the week that the GOP crazies are really coming out of the woodwork. On Tuesday, we saw them heckle the President Biden during his State of the Union Address. Then yesterday the House Oversight Committee held an insane hearing on supposed Twitter persecution of Republicans. And today the subcommittee on the “weaponization of government” will meet for the first time. I can’t watch these GOP clown shows, but fortunately, Aaron Rupar does watch post video clips of them on Twitter.
Reactions to the SOTU
I really liked this piece by Jennifer Bendery at HuffPost: The Best Part Of Joe Biden’s SOTU Address Happened After It Was Over.
On Tuesday night, millions of people tuned in to watch President Joe Biden deliver his State of the Union address to the nation.
But the best part of the night happened right after Biden’s speech was over, when most (but not all) networks weren’t airing his comments anymore and he made his way through the crowd. It was here, where the president could actually talk to all the dignitaries, members of Congress and other people in the room, that he was truly in his element.
After formally addressing the country for about an hour and 10 minutes, Biden spent another 20 minutes cracking jokes with Supreme Court justices, telling stories, taking countless selfies, talking to people’s kids on cell phones, listening to Democratic and Republican lawmakers’ requests for help, and offering comfort to people who needed it.
“Hey, big Jon!” Biden shouted at Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), hand outstretched, barely a minute after he’d stepped down from the dais. Immediately surrounded by about a dozen senators and House members eager to shake his hand, the president took the time to talk to all of them before drifting over to Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who solemnly stood nearby with some other high-ranking military leaders.
Motioning to his own shoulders, Biden jokingly called out to a four-star general in uniform, “Aren’t those stars heavy?”
When Supreme Court Justices Elena Kagan and John Roberts passed by, the president stopped them to apologize for making them listen to his speech.
“Sorry. Sorry you guys had to sit there,” he said, as Kagan looked briefly confused and started laughing. “I apologize.”
It was like watching a pinball bounce around the game board. Biden jumped from one group of people to the next, to the next, to the next, in absolutely no rush to leave and seemingly energized by every minute of being able to engage with real live people. And here he was back in the building he’d spent decades of his life working in ― a second home of sorts. Why ever leave?
Biden certainly seems energized. What a contrast to whiny old man Trump! I think Republicans should be worried about 2024.
This is an interesting take from Josh Barro: Biden’s State of the Union Was a Feisty Return to ’90s Politics. Republicans Should Be Afraid.
One of the implicit promises of the Biden presidential campaign was to turn back the political clock to a more normal time, before Donald Trump made everything weird. COVID delayed that process, but I think we’re finally getting there, and last night’s State of the Union address was a demonstration of that. What I did not anticipate was how far back we would go.
Biden’s speech was right out of the ‘90s in a way that I think was very politically savvy for the president and his team, and it previews how they are likely to run a re-election campaign against Gov. Ron DeSantis, if he is the Republican nominee.
Here’s what was so ‘90s about Biden’s speech.
After Clinton stepped on a rake with his health care plan and lost both houses of Congress in the 1994 midterm elections, he got himself to an eight-point re-election victory 1996 by running on two key themes:
Republicans are right-wing lunatics who want to cut your Social Security and Medicare, and I will never let them do that.
Here’s a bunch of popular, small-bore ideas that I can work to implement on a bipartisan basis with those Republican lunatics.
Biden’s speech yesterday had a lot from column 1 and a lot from column 2. I’m going to save the bipartisanship talk for tomorrow’s newsletter. Today, let’s talk about entitlements, and Biden’s effective and Clintonesque sowing of fear, uncertainty and doubt about Republicans’ stewardship of popular benefit programs.
Biden noted that while many Republicans say they are officially committed to protecting Social Security and Medicare, there are some who have been talking about undermining the programs. Republicans booed and jeered that this was a lie — ensuring that the accusation would be at the center of today’s news coverage of the speech.
And today, as Biden has been out campaigning, he read from a brochure from last cycle’s NRSC chair, Florida Sen. Rick Scott, about Scott’s plan to sunset all government programs — including Social Security and Medicare — every five years.
Barro goes on to discuss Ron De Santis’s arguments against Social Security. Read it at the link.
The Washington Post’s Isaac Arnsdorf has another take on the Social Security issue: GOP hopefuls’ past positions on Social Security loom over 2024 primary.
Donald Trump is going on the attack against potential rivals for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination over Social Security and Medicare, seizing on the same GOP divisions over federal spending that President Biden is seeking to exploit.
Trump moved to wield the issue as a wedge in the primary, particularly against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, with a video message last month urging Republicans to use negotiations over raising the debt ceiling to cut spending but not “a single penny” from Social Security or Medicare. He also posted a short video clip of a younger DeSantis praising Paul D. Ryan, the former House budget chairman from Wisconsin who famously proposed replacing Medicare with giving seniors money for private health insurance.
The emphasis reflects potential vulnerability for Republican rivals who were elected to powerful posts in the pre-Trump tea party era, embracing austerity in the last showdown over raising the federal debt limit. As Trump’s campaign has signaled an interest in stoking debate over entitlements, Biden used his State of the Union address on Tuesday to similarly bait Republicans, producing a rowdy spectacle in which they booed his accusation that they want to cut Social Security and Medicare.
“President Trump has been clear where he stands on the issue,” Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement. “Others will have to decide which side they’re on. And others will have to answer to past positions they’ve taken.”
Not that anyone should trust Trump, but at least he recognizes this as a problem for Republicans. Read more examples of statements Republican presidential hopefuls have made against Social Security and Medicare at the WaPo link.
GOP heckling at the SOTU
https://twitter.com/brianrayguitar/status/1623552642000764931?s=20&t=FRQJHHc9Lh4ATyvwDGie4w
Republicans who have clearly opposed Social Security, Medicare, and other social programs were outraged that President Biden had the nerve to call them out. Hence the unprofessional heckling that Biden used to his advantage.
The Hill: GOP divided over whether heckling Biden hurts them.
House Republicans are divided on whether the raucous heckling of President Biden during his State of the Union address on Tuesday night was inappropriate — or whether it helped them effectively communicate their position to the American public.
Many Republicans thought the uproar in response to Biden’s comment accusing Republicans of wanting to sunset Social Security and Medicare was justified, blaming the president for “instigating” a desired reaction that would put Republicans in a bad light. But some expressed doubts about the rowdiness that followed.
The claim about Social Security was the first to draw such an audible reaction from Republicans, who are fighting for spending cuts as a condition of raising the debt ceiling and seeking to sell those cuts to the American public.
“He started off, I thought, wonderfully. … But then you can’t stand up there and blatantly lie,” Rep. Lisa McClain (R-Mich.) said. “So as much as I wish we had had more decorum, OK, you are instigating that behavior. So it starts with the leader.”
Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) also put the blame on Biden.
“The president was trying to goad the members, and the members are passionate about it,” McCarthy said on Fox News Wednesday morning. “But the one thing that the president was saying was something that he knew was not true.”
Though Republicans have sought for decades to privatize Social Security and cut Medicare — and Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) released a proposal last year to sunset all federal programs after five years — McCarthy has repeatedly said that cuts to entitlement programs are “off the table” in debt ceiling talks, which he launched with Biden last week.
Is this hate speech? I hesitated to post it but…. HuffPost: James Carville Attacks GOP, Marjorie Taylor Greene As ‘White Trash’
https://twitter.com/KwikWarren/status/1623461444271411200?s=20&t=FRQJHHc9Lh4ATyvwDGie4w
Democratic political consultant James Carville on Wednesday described Republican lawmakers who heckled President Joe Biden during his State of the Union speech as “white trash.”
“I tell people I have the equivalent of a PhD in white trashology, and we saw real white trash on display,” Carville told MSNBC anchor Ari Melber.
Carville singled out far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), saying she “dresses like white trash” and should take fashion advice from serial liar Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.), in a video shared by Mediaite.
“The level of white trashdom in the Republican Party is staggering,” Carville added. “I mean, for somebody that has observed it for a long time like I have, I’ve never seen it manifest itself on a level that it’s manifesting itself.”
Ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, Carville slammed the GOP for fielding “very low-quality candidates” and suggested the reason:
“They have a lot of stupid people that vote in their primaries. They really do. I’m not really supposed to say that, but it’s obvious fact. And you know, when stupid people vote, you know who they nominate? Other stupid people.”
Then there was the GOP rebuttal:
https://twitter.com/brianrayguitar/status/1623556609917227008?s=20&t=FRQJHHc9Lh4ATyvwDGie4w
I have to wrap up this post, because I have a virtual doctor’s appointment soon. But here are some interesting reads on the wacky House hearing yesterday on how Twitter supposedly allowed the FBI to control their treatment of the Hunter Biden laptop story and the one coming up today about “weaponization of the government.”
Rolling Stone: Twitter Kept Entire ‘Database’ of Republican Requests to Censor Posts.
The Guardian: Ex-Twitter exec details ‘homophobic and antisemitic’ abuse over handling of Hunter Biden story.
The Washington Post: GOP lawmakers allege Big Tech conspiracy, even as ex-Twitter employees rebut them.
NBC News: New House committee on ‘weaponization’ of government to hold first hearing.
Roll Call: House ‘Weaponization’ hearing to take aim at Justice Department.
Have a great Thursday, Sky Dancers!!
Tuesday Reads: State of the Union
Posted: February 7, 2023 Filed under: just because 15 CommentsGood Morning!!
I can’t understand how it happened, but I’m sick again with the same symptoms I had a few weeks ago. I’m coughing so much that my stomach muscles are sore. It hurts every time I cough. This started out with a sore throat that lasted three days, and then the coughing began. I’m also going through Kleenex at an unbelievable rate. I didn’t have a single cold for about two years during the pandemic, but now I keep catching things. I don’t know how either, because I stay home most of the time. The only explanation I have is that other people in my building are not taking as many precautions as before. Almost no one wears a mask anymore. Anyway, this may not be much of a post.
As everyone knows, the State of the Union address is tonight. It will begin at 9PM. I’m still worried about whether there will be adequate security for President Biden. Will anyone be checking to make sure none of the insane House members bring guns with them?
Speaking to a church audience, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) told the crowd to pray for Joe Biden: “May his days be few and another take his office.”
It isn’t the first time she’s made such a “prayer.” She’s been using the line “may his days be few” since 2022, when she spoke to the Charis Christian Center Family Camp Meeting in Colorado.
It once again caused an uproar among those on social media who saw the video.
“THIS is the self-proclaimed party of Jesus Christ,” tweeted political commentator Lindy Li. “This is the self-appointed party of Christianity SHAME ON YOU! This is why church pews are emptying at a ferocious rate. Why increasing numbers of Americans now say they are religiously unaffiliated. Christianity in America has devolved into a rabid tribe of Talibangelicals and gun-totin Y’all Qaeda fanatics.”
Others noted that her so-called “sermon” included her promoting her legislation to impeach the president and argued that bringing politics into church pews is yet another reason that churches should lose their tax-exempt status.
Another called it a federal crime to threaten the president, which Boebert has gotten away with in the past because she’s not asking activists to actively kill, but rather praying for death.
I just hope that Boebert and Marjory Taylor Greene and the rest of the crazies will be frisked on the way in.
Here’s a preview of the speech at The Guardian: Biden set to highlight economic gains in State of the Union address – live.
State of the Union addresses are usually a pretty big deal – it’s a major opportunity for the president to set the tone for the year in front of the most important people in Washington. This year, the stakes for Joe Biden are even higher. The 2024 presidential election is already looming on the horizon, and while Biden has yet to officially launch a reelection campaign, he is expected to do so in the next few weeks.
Biden has been prepping for his speech for weeks and is expected to lay out an underlying theme of unity, angling for stable leadership over one drenched in partisan disarray. He is expected to speak at length about the achievements of the last two years, including the passage of the $1.2tn Bipartisan Infrastructure bill that was passed in 2021 and invests in repairing America’s roads and bridges, among other investments. He will also touch on recent good news around the economy, including a low unemployment rate and the decreasing inflation rate.
Republicans are already readying up their punches in response to tonight’s address as the party tries to make their own case to Americans that Democrats have failed while in power…..
It’s been less than a year since Joe Biden delivered his first State of the Union address on March 2 of last year, but a lot has changed over the last year. Top of mind for many Americans has been the economy, with inflation rising to decades-high level over the summer. Republicans gained a slim majority in the House during the midterm election. One thing has not changed: The war in Ukraine is still rattling on.
In last year’s 62-minute speech, Congress was largely unified in support of Ukraine, with the invasion having taken place just a week prior. Both Democrats and Republicans were wearing yellow and blue in solidarity with Ukraine, and some held small Ukrainian flags.
This year, First Lady Jill Biden has invited Ukraine’s ambassador to the US Oksana Markarova to be her guest to the address for the second year. Markarova received a standing ovation when she was introduced during Biden’s speech last year.
Biden is expected to ask for bipartisan support in sending more aid to Ukraine as the anniversary of the invasion approaches. Yesterday, NBC News reported that Biden is expected to travel to Poland later this month for the anniversary, though the trip has not been confirmed.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders is doing the GOP rebuttal to the speech.
SOTU rebuttals are often the kiss of death for the speaker’s career. Remember the ones by Bobby Jindal and Marco Rubio? I hope that holds true for Sanders. For old time’s sake you can check out these NYT articles:
Governor Jindal, Rising G.O.P. Star, Plummets After Speech.
My Fellow Americans … I’m Thirsty.
Here’s another preview from the AP:
From the article: What to Watch: New political vibes this State of the Union.
Look for new faces and fresh political dynamics as President Joe Biden delivers this year’s State of the Union address, coupled with attention to some old problems brought back into painful focus by recent events.
The president on Tuesday night will stand before a joint session of Congress for the first time since voters in the midterm elections handed control of the House to Republicans. Biden, like presidents past, will make the case that the nation is strong and that better days lie ahead. But he finds himself in choppy waters as he passes the halfway mark of his term.
After a series of legislative victories during the first two years of Biden’s term, Republicans are looking to undo some of his early wins. Recent mass shootings and a police killing in Memphis, Tennessee, have brought renewed focus to the issues of gun violence and excessive police force. And on the foreign policy front, Biden faces the formidable task of keeping a Western alliance — and the American electorate — united behind Ukraine in its effort to repel Russia’s ongoing invasion. He’s also dealing with fallout from the U.S. downing of a suspected Chinese spy balloon that floated across the U.S. last week. On top of all that, a special counsel is investigating how classified information from Biden’s days as vice president and senator ended up at his Delaware home and former office.
Read the AP’s suggestions of what to watch for in the speech at the link.
Storeis
From the White House website: The White House Announces Guest List for the First Lady’s Box for the 2023 State of the Union Address.
A few of the guests, from Twitter:
[I’m having a formatting problem that I can’t figure out–I can’t get double spacing to work.] I’m going to end with some stories to check out while we wait for the big speech tonight.
CNN: ‘He was one of these rockstars’: Former FBI agents shocked at the indictment of one of their own.
David Kurtz at Talking Points Memo: WARNING: Republicans Are Up To Their Same Old Tricks On Social Security
AP: White House: Improved surveillance caught Chinese balloon
Defense One: China’s Balloon May Have Taught Pentagon More Than Beijing Learned From It, General Says
CNN: Exclusive: US intel assessment documents Chinese spy balloon incident under Trump
Take care everyone, and have a nice Tuesday.
Mostly Monday Reads: Why is #CivilWar Trending?
Posted: February 6, 2023 Filed under: just because | Tags: Guns in the Capitol again, krewe du Vieux 2013, Misogynoir, Trump Insurrectionists 13 Comments
Krewe du Vieux, Krewe of Underwear, Theme: Burning Ban Bookmobile, 2023
Good Day Sky Dancers!
I’m running late today because I’m exhausted and caught up in something local that I’m not sure I should blog about. I’ve been on Twitter reading to see if anyone agrees with my take on a few subkrewes of Krewe du Vieux (KDV) and what some consider satire, the text BB sent me this morning wondering if guns would be brought to the SOTU address by President Biden, and the Twitter Hashtag about Civil War.
I always run pictures of the KDV parade because I have friends that march and plan all year for the parade. I like to see and support them. Also, they are usually spot-on with their political satire. Each subkrewe picks a topic within a broader theme, mainly dealing with local politics. You may remember when the Krewe du Jieux and Krewe du Mishigas got together with a beautiful float statue and tribute to Ruth Bader Ginsberg that I posted a few years ago before Covid-19 took down parades for a while.
Many of the subkrewes found perfect pitch satire. Others ventured into misogynoir and now act like any criticism just means we don’t get what they’re about. I will use one example, but it’s not the only one. We have a black woman elected Mayor, a black woman elected Sheriff, and a black woman currently serving as the acting police chief. Black women have served and are serving on the City Council. Our Mayors have always had difficulty governing this city for many reasons. Our current Mayor, LaToya Cantrell, has made errors in judgment. I disagree with many things she’s done. She’s a rich target for political satire. She’s under a recall petition sponsored primarily by a rich, white uptown millionaire who wants the city to be more white and gentrified. But if they recall her, what’s the plan?
This is me and fellow blogger Adrastanos (Peter) from First Draft. Krewe du Spank took on the extremist right-wing owner of the Rock in Bowl, who gave a Halloween costume award to a guy dressed as an insurrectionist with a where’s Nancy Shirt. They all have bowling shirts with the name Nancy on them. Peter’s channeling is inner “the Dude” here. They didn’t get outside the Overton Window on this one. KREWE OF
SPANK, This Ain’t How We Bowl, 2023
The Krewes that took her on ventured into racist and sexist tropes and unnecessary images of black women stereotypes to take what should be a political punch at her. They referred to her as LaToya-let and showed her in a pink toilet. I’ll let Big John and his photos at the Gambit give you an idea. I don’t want to be suis generis with this topic. You can decide for yourself.
So, the Krewe of Lewd and a number like to go a bit over the top with paper mache dicks. I’m used to this. The theme was Krewe du Vieux Beats Off, so I expected gratuitous cocks floats, and I got them. There was spanking the monkey, choking the chicken, and a jizz from a Shell gas pump sending up the Jazz Fest’s sell-out to Shell Oil. Not my cup of tea, but it wasn’t a targeted thing, and it undoubtedly wasn’t aimed at some while using sexist and misogynist tropes.
The one krewe I will call out for the sins of misogynoir here is l.E.W.D. They went after the sheriff, and I’m not even sure why. This is how it started. “There’s a new sheriff in town, and she needs to learn to ride a horse by Mardi Gras. Plus a few more details about the department’s role in restoring parade routes”
Francis the horse seemed to know exactly what she was doing. But on Friday morning, at the City Park stables, the newish Orleans Parish Sheriff was still getting used to sitting high in the saddle. Susan Hutson, who took office in May 2022, may have spent part of her youth in Texas, but that doesn’t make her a cowgirl.
Though, she said, she loves westerns.
The Sheriff hopes to ride a horse in the Zulu parade a month from now, ceremonially repping the department during the climax of Carnival. And she might ride in the feminist-inclined Muses parade too; a perfect match for the first female sheriff in Louisiana.
“From day one,” Hutson said, “my team was like, ‘You have to learn to ride a horse for Mardi Gras.”
L.E.W.D. Ho Down at the LEWD Ranch, 2023
So, somehow, that became this. And I still don’t know what the beef L.E.W.D had with the sheriff. Misogynoir. She’s hypersexualized. She’s turned into some kind of black barbie doll. I have no idea what discussions went on behind this, but I was appalled and have been writing about it ever since.
And now, for my next topic. Civil Fucking War if the DOJ or anyone indicts Trump for crimes? Are you serious? Remember when MSNBC unceremoniously dumped Tiffany Cross for saying this on her TV show back in September? So, can we say she just said it before Trump did?
Wave those Fallopian tubes in protest, Ladies! Krewe of Spermes, SCOTUS incites a Pussy Riot,2023
This brings me to those metal detectors removed from the doors on Capitol Hill and BB’s Tweet. This is from The Independent. “House Democrats fear GOP members could endanger Biden at State of the Union. Members are concerned by the GOP removing metal detectors at the doors to the House chamber.”
A group of 14 House Democrats are voicing fears that House Republicans’ reversal of security rules enacted after the January 6 attack could allow one of their Republican colleagues to threaten the life of President Joe Biden or other attendees in the House chamber during next week’s State of the Union speech.
Mr Biden is set to deliver his annual message to Congress on Tuesday, 7 February. It will be his second State of the Union speech to Congress and his first since Republicans took control of the House by winning a majority in last year’s midterm elections.
One of the first acts of the new GOP majority was to eliminate the magnetometers that then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ordered US Capitol Police to erect at each entrance to the House chamber in the wake of the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Although members have always technically been prohibited from wearing firearms in the chamber, some claimed to have had their weapons on their person during the attack.
In a letter to House and Senate leaders, the group of House Democrats said they were writing with “urgent concern for the safety and security of the President, other dignitaries, and guests” at next week’s joint session of Congress.
“The GOP House Majority’s new rules have made the safety and security of the House Chamber, the very seat of American Democracy, at risk to infiltration and violence with reckless changes to necessary preventative measures. As both of our chambers come together to hear a message from the President on the state of our Union, we are concerned for the safety and security of those present,” said the members, a group which includes Bennie Thompson, the Mississippi Democrat who formerly chaired the House January 6 select committee.
The members pointed to past attempts by members to secret firearms onto the House floor, other members declaring their intent to do the same, and a newly-elected GOP member sending inert grenades to colleagues as gifts as evidence that the House remains “vulnerable to multiple fronts of attacks both from inside and outside Congress”.
“Considering the ability of Members of Congress to carry firearms in the capitol complex outside the House Floor, removal of magnetometers from the entrances to the House Floor, and with record threats against the lives of Members of Congress, the security of the House complex is today precarious,” they said.
They added that they are “urgently” requesting information on what steps leadership is taking to secure the chamber before next week’s event, and said they are “amenable” to a “closed-door briefing” on the matter.
Because the State of the Union is designated as a National Security Special Event by the Department of Homeland Security, the US Secret Service — not the US Capitol Police — will be in charge of security for the Tuesday night joint session.
Krewe of Spermes, SCOTUS incites a Pussy Riot,2023
This brings me to this question. Have we ever figured out how may rogue Secret Service agents there are that will be there? I’ll let BB preview the speech tomorrow.
I need a nap already.
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)
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