Lazy Caturday Reads
Posted: February 19, 2022 Filed under: morning reads | Tags: caturday, Donald Trump, Fiona Hill, January 6 insurrection, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Oath Keepers, Stuart Rhodes, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin, Why Cats Paint 17 CommentsGood Morning and Happy Caturday!!
Today’s images are from the book Why Cats Paint: A Theory of Feline Aesthetics, by Heather Busch and Burton Silver. It’s a delightfully tongue-in-cheek discussion of “cat artists” that is really fun to read. Here’s some commentary on the book at Goodreads.
Today’s news is full of Ukraine stories. It’s looking as if Putin really plans to go through with an invasion. Here’s the latest:
President Joe Biden on Friday said he is now convinced Russian President Vladimir Putin has made the decision to invade Ukraine, but emphasized that room for diplomacy remains.
“As of this moment, I am convinced he’s made the decision,” Biden said during remarks at the White House.
The President also said the US believes Russian forces intend to attack Ukraine “in the coming week” or sooner, and that an attack will target the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Saturday said Russia was “moving into the right positions to conduct an attack,” echoing Biden’s assertion that Putin had made up his mind on invading.
“They’re uncoiling and now poised to strike,” Austin said, speaking from Vilnius, Lithuania. Austin said the US would pursue a diplomatic solution “until the very last minute, until it’s not possible.”
Biden plans to spend the weekend monitoring the ongoing Ukraine crisis from the White House as he meets with his national security team and remains in close contact with world leaders, multiple officials say. Biden had considered traveling to Delaware, as he typically does, but decided to remain in Washington.
Vice President Kamala Harris is in Germany today for the Munich Security Conference. Reuters: West puts up united front as Russia begins nuclear exercises.
MUNICH, Feb 19 (Reuters) – Russia must not attempt to move Ukraine’s borders by force, Western leaders warned on Saturday, saying they would be ready to respond even if Russia created a pretext for an invasion by accusing Ukraine of aggression.
Charlie the peripheral realist
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris said the United States would reinforce NATO’s eastern flank to act as a further deterrent to any Russian military action in addition to the threat of sanctions.
“National borders should not be changed by force,” Harris said at the Munich Security Conference.
“We have prepared economic measures that will be swift, severe, and united,” she said. “We will target Russia’s financial institutions and key industries.”
Western leaders were meeting in Munich amid reports of explosions just inside Russian territory to Ukraine’s east and in the parts of eastern Ukraine that are controlled by Moscow-backed rebels.
But most also added that diplomacy had not yet run its course.
“History has not yet been written: there is an exit that the Russian government can choose at any time,” said German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock after a meeting of Western foreign ministers.
“Our common message to them is very clear: Don’t make this fatal mistake. Withdraw your troops … Let’s talk.”
But she warned against being misled by misinformation coming from separatist regions , saying Ukraine had done nothing to give the separatist leaders a reason for the evacuations they ordered on Friday.
Read more about the Munich meeting at The Washington Post: Harris, Blinken navigate Munich Security Conference as Europe holds its breath.
NBC News: Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine call to mobilize as Putin oversees nuclear drill.
Pro-Russian separatist leaders in eastern Ukraine ordered a full military mobilization Saturday, amid a spike in violence that has heightened fears that Moscow is planning to use an escalation in the conflictas a pretext to invade.
Pepper’s self-portrait
The announcements came ahead of planned large-scale drills involving Russian nuclear forces, overseen by President Vladimir Putin, offering a timely reminder of the country’s nuclear might, as Europe faces its gravest security crisis since the Cold War. Ballistic and cruise missiles were launched from land, air and sea the Kremlin said in a statement Saturday.
In eastern Ukraine, where the Moscow-supported separatists have been fighting government forces since 2014, Denis Pushilin, the head of the self-proclaimed “Donetsk People’s Republic,” urged reservists to show up at military enlistment offices in a video released on the chat app Telegram on Saturday.
In neighboring Luhansk, Leonid Pasechnik, leader of the self-proclaimed “Luhansk People’s Republic,” also signed a decree calling for “full combat readiness.”
The separatists control an enclave about the size of New Jersey, where it’s population of around 2 million speak Russian use the Russian ruble and hundreds of thousands have Russian passports.
Their statements came as the evacuation of civilians from the rebel-held territories in those regions to neighboring Russia continued.
The New York Times interviewed Russia expert Fiona Hill about Putin’s motives: Explaining Putin’s Decades-Long Obsession With Ukraine. Here’s the beginning of the interview:
How would you evaluate the administration’s handling of this crisis so far? What’s worked and what hasn’t?
I think they’re handling it as well as they can be, given the circumstances. Writ large, what the administration is doing right now is certainly what I would recommend doing. But I don’t know whether we can say if it’s going to work or not. The real test is going to be over a long period of time. I don’t think this is going to be a short, sharp crisis.
Tiger the spontaneous reductionist
What do you mean?
Putin’s been trying to get a grip on Ukraine for years now. They cut off the gas to Ukraine in 2006. He’s been in power for 22 years, and the whole of that time, he’s had Ukraine in the cross hairs one way or another, and it’s intensified over time. Putin wants to be the person who, on his watch, in his presidency, pulls Ukraine back into Russia’s orbit. And he could be president until 2036, in terms of what’s possible for him.
Is this fundamentally ideological for him, or geopolitical?
It’s about him personally — his legacy, his view of himself, his view of Russian history. Putin clearly sees himself as a protagonist in Russian history, and is putting himself in the place of previous Russian leaders who’ve tried to gather in what he sees as the Russian land. Ukraine is the outlier, the one that got away that he’s got to bring back.
Head over to the NYT to read the rest.
Back in the USA, we continue to learn more about Donald Trump’s many crimes.
The Washington Post: National Archives confirms classified material was in boxes at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence.
Friday Reads
Posted: February 18, 2022 Filed under: Foreign Affairs, Hillary Clinton, morning reads | Tags: Donald Trump, Fox News, Joe Biden, John Durham, Ken Starr, libel laws, Right wing media, Russia, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin 9 CommentsGood Morning!!
Two Acrobats with a Dog, by Pablo Picasso, 1905
In my Tuesday post, I wrote about the right wing media attacks on Hillary Clinton after Bill Barr’s handpicked special counsel (aka attack dog) John Durham made public a court filing that implied that the Clinton campaign had somehow spied on Donald Trump in 2016. I posted a NYT piece by Charlie Savage that explained why the charges were nonsensical.
This insanity has continued all this week, and yesterday even Durham pointed out that the wingers were wrong. Charlie Savage at The New York Times: Durham Distances Himself From Furor in Right-Wing Media Over Filing.
John H. Durham, the Trump-era special counsel scrutinizing the investigation into Russia’s 2016 election interference, distanced himself on Thursday from false reports by right-wing news outlets that a motion he recently filed said Hillary Clinton’s campaign had paid to spy on Trump White House servers.
Citing a barrage of such reports on Fox News and elsewhere based on the prosecutor’s Feb. 11 filing, defense lawyers for a Democratic-linked cybersecurity lawyer, Michael Sussmann, have accused the special counsel of including unnecessary and misleading information in filings “plainly intended to politicize this case, inflame media coverage and taint the jury pool.”
In a filing on Thursday, Mr. Durham defended himself, saying those accusations about his intentions were “simply not true.” He said he had “valid and straightforward reasons” for including the information in the Feb. 11 filing that set off the firestorm, while disavowing responsibility for how certain news outlets had interpreted and portrayed it.
“If third parties or members of the media have overstated, understated or otherwise misinterpreted facts contained in the government’s motion, that does not in any way undermine the valid reasons for the government’s inclusion of this information,” he wrote.
But even as he did not acknowledge any problem with how he couched his filing last week, Mr. Durham said he would make future filings under seal if they contained “information that legitimately gives rise to privacy issues or other concerns that might overcome the presumption of public access to judicial documents.”
Former President Donald J. Trump has seized on the inaccurate reporting to declare that there is now “indisputable evidence” of a Clinton campaign conspiracy against him — and to suggest that there ought to be executions. Mr. Trump, Fox News hosts and others have also criticized mainstream journalists for not covering the purported revelation.
Yesterday, Clinton herself spoke out in an aside in a speech at the New York Democratic Convention.
That was a clear warning that the nonsense is approaching libel territory. Ted Johnson at Deadline: Hillary Clinton On Fox News’ Amplification Of “Spying” Claims: “They’re Getting Awfully Close To Actual Malice In Their Attacks.”
Hillary Clinton went on offense against a fusillade of attacks from Donald Trump and his defenders among rightward talk hosts and media outlets, as she took aim specifically at Fox News.
“Fox leads the charge in their accusations against me, counting on their audience to fall for it again,” Clinton said in a speech before New York state Democrats. “And as an aside, they are getting awfully close to actual malice in their attacks.”
Last week, John Durham, the special counsel who has been investigating the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation, raised some new allegations in a court filing. Conservative talk hosts seized on it as a bombshell that showed that Clinton’s campaign spied on Trump. The New York Post had a cover on Tuesday with the headline “Hillary the Spy,” and a Fox News chyron read “Hillary Is The Real Insurrection” during Jesse Watters’ show.
In the Kennel, by Edvard Munch
In fact, according to multiple fact checking stories from outlets including The New York Times, The Washington Post and CNN, Durham’s allegations, which involve an internet security expert working for the U.S. government and a law firm that did work for Clinton’s campaign, were old news, not as significant as they seem, or potentially misleading. Yet media on the right ran with it, characterizing it as a Watergate-level scandal, or even greater.
A FoxNews.com story claimed that Durham alleged that lawyers from Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2016 had paid to “infiltrate” servers belonging to Trump Tower and later the White House, in order to establish an ‘inference’ and ‘narrative’ to bring to federal government agencies linking Donald Trump to Russia. The word “infiltrate,” however, comes not from Durham’s filing but from commentary from an ally to Trump, Kash Patel.
Read more on the Hillary hate story:
Gregory Krieg at CNN: Hillary Clinton sidesteps Cuomo, hits out at Fox News and GOP lies in New York speech.
Oliver Darcy at CNN: Sean Hannity dares Hillary Clinton to sue as she warns network’s dishonest coverage gets ‘close to actual malice.’
Factchecker Glenn Kessler at The Washington Post: How the right embraced the false claim that Hillary Clinton ‘spied’ on President Donald Trump.
Erick Boelert writes that John Durham is “Ken Starr II”: The media and Durham’s corrupt “spying” investigation.
In other news, the situation in Ukraine is getting more and more dangerous. Here are the latest stories this morning:
Interesting analysis of Putin from Anton Troianovski at The New York Times: Vladimir Putin: Crafty Strategist or Aggrieved and Reckless Leader?
MOSCOW — At this moment of crescendo for the Ukraine crisis, it all comes down to what kind of leader President Vladimir V. Putin is.
In Moscow, many analysts remain convinced that the Russian president is essentially rational, and that the risks of invading Ukraine would be so great that his huge troop buildup makes sense only as a very convincing bluff. But some also leave the door open to the idea that he has fundamentally changed amid the pandemic, a shift that may have left him more paranoid, more aggrieved and more reckless.
The 20-foot-long table that Mr. Putin has used to socially distance himself this month from European leaders flying in for crisis talks symbolizes, to some longtime observers, his detachment from the rest of the world. For almost two years, Mr. Putin has ensconced himself in a virus-free cocoon unlike that of any Western leader, with state television showing him holding most key meetings by teleconference alone in a room and keeping even his own ministers at a distance on the rare occasions that he summons them in person.
Speculation over a leader’s mental state is always fraught, but as Mr. Putin’s momentous decision approaches, Moscow commentators puzzling over what he might do next in Ukraine are finding some degree of armchair psychology hard to avoid.
“There’s this impression of irritation, of a lack of interest, of an unwillingness to delve into anything new,” Ekaterina Schulmann, a political scientist and former member of Mr. Putin’s human rights council, said of the president’s recent public appearances. “The public is being shown that he has been in practical isolation, with ever fewer breaks, since the spring of 2020.”
Could Putin be nearly as crazy as Trump?
A large-scale invasion of Ukraine, many analysts point out, would be an enormous escalation compared with any of the actions that Mr. Putin has taken before. In 2014, the Kremlin’s subterfuge allowed Russian forces stripped of identifying markings to capture Crimea without firing a single shot. The proxy war that Mr. Putin fomented in Ukraine’s east allowed him to deny being a party to the conflict.
“Starting a full-scale war is completely not in Putin’s interest,” said Anastasia Likhacheva, the dean of world economy and international affairs at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow. “It is very difficult for me to find any rational explanation for a desire to carry out such a campaign.”
Even if Mr. Putin were able to take control of Ukraine, she noted, such a war would accomplish the opposite of what the president says he wants: rolling back the NATO presence in Eastern Europe. In the case of a war, the NATO allies would be “more unified than ever,” Ms. Likhacheva said, and they would be likely to deploy powerful new weaponry along Russia’s western frontiers.
CNBC: Russia now has over 150,000 troops near Ukraine, U.S. official says, amid reports of more attacks.
The Ukrainian government and Russian state-controlled media on Friday exchanged fresh accusations of cease-fire violations near the country’s eastern border.
Andre Utter and his dog, by Suzanne Valadon, 1932
In a statement on Facebook, the Ukrainian Joint Forces Operation said 45 cease-fire violations had been recorded in eastern Ukraine on Friday as of 2 p.m. local time. The JFO alleged that 34 of those violations included the use of weapons prohibited by the Minsk agreements, which Russia, Ukraine and pro-Moscow separatists signed in 2014 and 2015 to prevent a war in eastern Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Russian state-controlled media agency RIA claimed on Friday that Ukrainian government forces had launched three shelling strikes against Russian-backed separatists.
CNBC was unable to verify either report.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe on Thursday said its mission in Ukraine had reported almost 600 cease-fire violations in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, substantially higher than the 153 violations reported during the previous period.
There’s much more at the link.
CBS News: Shelling intensifies in eastern Ukraine amid concern Russia’s creating a pretext for an invasion.
Kyiv — Ukrainian forces and the pro-Russian separatists they’re fighting in the country’s east reported a second day of increased shelling on Friday, as the leaders of the rebels’ self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics accused the Ukrainian government of planning an imminent attack. The rebel administrations in the two breakaway regions announced plans to evacuate thousands of civilians into neighboring Russia.
Western leaders say an escalation in the fighting in Ukraine‘s Donbas region — which has simmered for almost eight years — could be part of Russian efforts to create a “false-flag” pretext to invade.
“Ukraine is not your enemy, but those who want to defend you against Ukraine are. Do not heed rumours about some offensive operation,” Ukraine’s defense minister said in a speech Friday. “We have no intentions to conduct any force actions towards the ORDLO (Donbas) or the Crimea. At all. We will move by the political and diplomatic way. Because there are our citizens and we will not put them in danger.”
The Ukrainian government’s reassurance didn’t appear to be calming nerves in the rebel-held region, however, with social media photos purporting to show people lining up to take money out of banks.
Read more at CBS News.
Two Dogs, Malmo Konsthall, Sweden, 1911
Reuters: Rebels announce evacuation from east Ukraine.
MOSCOW/KYIV, Feb 18 (Reuters) – Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine said on Friday they planned to evacuate their breakaway region’s residents to Russia, a shock turn in a conflict the West believes Moscow plans to use to justify an all-out invasion of its neighbour.
Announcing the move on social media, Denis Pushilin, head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, said Russia had agreed to provide accommodation for those who leave. Women, children and the elderly should be evacuated first. The other self-proclaimed region, Luhansk, made a similar announcement.
Millions of civilians are believed to live in the two rebel-held regions of eastern Ukraine; most are Russian speakers and many have already been granted Russian citizenship.
The eastern Ukraine conflict zone saw the most intense artillery bombardment for years on Friday, with the Kyiv government and the separatists trading blame. Western countries have said they think the shelling, which began on Thursday and intensified in its second day, is part of a pretext to invade.
Washington said Russia – which says it started drawing down troops near Ukraine this week – had instead done the opposite: ramping up the force menacing its neighbour to between 169,000 and 190,000 troops, from 100,000 at the end of January.
“This is the most significant military mobilisation in Europe since the Second World War,” U.S. ambassador Michael Carpenter told a meeting at the Vienna-based Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
One more from Foreign Policy: Russia Planning Post-Invasion Arrest and Assassination Campaign in Ukraine, U.S. Officials Say.
The United States has obtained intelligence that Russia may target prominent political opponents, anti-corruption activists, and Belarusian and Russian dissidents living in exile should it move forward with plans to invade Ukraine, as U.S. President Joe Biden warned on Thursday that the threat of a renewed Russian invasion of the country remains “very high” and could take place within the next several days.
Four people familiar with U.S. intelligence said that Russia has drafted lists of Ukrainian political figures and other prominent individuals to be targeted for either arrest or assassination in the event of a Russian assault on Ukraine.
Cape Cod Evening, Edward Hopper
A fifth person, a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the United States has been downgrading its intelligence classification regarding threats to specific groups within Ukraine to share this information with Ukrainian government officials and other partners in the region positioned to help….
“As we’ve seen in the past, we expect Russia will try to force cooperation through intimidation and repression,” said a U.S. official who spoke on background on condition of anonymity.
“These acts, which in past Russian operations have included targeted killings, kidnappings/forced disappearances, detentions, and the use of torture, would likely target those who oppose Russian actions, including Russian and Belarusian dissidents in exile in Ukraine, journalists and anti-corruption activists, and vulnerable populations such as religious and ethnic minorities and LGBTQI+ persons,” the official said.
The Biden administration has also been startled by how formalized the lists are, which appear to target anyone who could challenge the Russian agenda. Five Eyes intelligence partners have also tracked Russian intelligence agencies, such as the FSB and GRU, building up target and kill lists. One congressional aide, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the moves were typical of Russian doctrine, using armed forces to seize military objectives, while special operators shape the conflict and intelligence operators come into the country to get rid of opposition elements.
I expect there will be more developments in the Ukraine story today and over the weekend.
What are your thoughts? What other stories are you following?
Thursday Reads: Oy, the Headlines!
Posted: February 17, 2022 Filed under: 2022 Primaries, 2022 SOTU | Tags: RINO Hunting 33 Comments
Spring Lupine by Laurie Kersey
Good Day Sky Dancers!
BB is going to her doctor’s to get things sorted out so I’m doing the Thursday post this week instead of the Friday. She’ll return tomorrow and hopefully, with a good pain management plan!
The headlines today are the usual mish-mash of both-siderisms of the Biden Economy and Biden judicial and Fed appointments. The bottom line on those is basically Republicans lie and obstruct and the New York Times finds that responsible governing tactics somehow. The other set of headlines reminds me that everyone around Trump is basically a criminal and under some kind of investigation. There are two funny things in the headlines regarding the Trump response to losing his long-time accountants. (He trashed his defense) Then there’s the whacko Pillow Guy. The rest is still pretty depressing because Trump acolytes are running for offices at all levels with the crazy out on display.
So, here are some things to read and consider. At least, I’m spotting my first azaleas and magnolias of the season as I await next week’s State of the Union and the wail of the pundits.
Children with spring flowers by Henri Lebasque
Let’s start with the antics of the My Pillow guy that got him banned from Canada. This is from The Daily Beast as reported by Zachary Petrizzo. “The MyPillow Guy Is Seriously Planning to Drop Pillows From the Sky Over Canada. PREPARE THE TEENY TINY PARACHUTES!” This so reminds me of the WKRP Turkey Drop that I can’t stop laughing.
After his initial Tuesday shipment of MyPillow products was denied entry into Canada, Mike Lindell now has a backup plan to get free pillows to Canadian truckers: drop them from the sky via a helicopter. The pillow maven told The Daily Beast late Wednesday night that he intends to drop his pillows into Canada from a helicopter “with little parachutes” attached. “We need to get the MyPillows to the people!” he continued. The 2020 election dead-ender further made it a point to ensure The Daily Beast noted in this report that the pillows will have “little parachutes,” adding, “make sure you put that part in, or it could be dangerous.” Asked where exactly he intended to drop the pillows, he said, “I can not give the location out, and it is no joke! I just confirmed with them [the helicopter company], and yes, this is the plan. We have the helicopter confirmed, but we are moving the time up to 11 am.” The Daily Beast could not reach the Canada Border Services Agency for comment late Wednesday night.
Flowers by Gustav Klimt
I certainly hope those Brave Canadian mounties can rope him and put him in in the hoosgow with a saggy mattress and feather pillows.
Republicans are trying to tie inflation worries to President Biden while White House economist are pointing to price gouging due to monopoly/oligopoly status of many US Businesses. This is from The Washington Post: “White House economists push back against pressure to blame corporate power for inflation. Administration officials engage in ‘the war of the track changes’ as aides differ on corporate responsibility for high prices.”
The White House has faced substantial political head winds from the pressures caused by inflation, with the president’s economic approval rating declining amid the biggest price increases in roughly four decades.
As price hikes have hurt many Americans, large corporations are seeing their most profitable quarters in years, with corporate profits up by as much as 27 percent from 2019 to 2021, according to Dean Baker, a liberal economist. The share of corporate income going to profits rose from 24.1 percent to 26.7 percent from the fourth quarter of 2019 to the third quarter of last year.
To this point, Biden has mostly limited his remarks on corporate greed and inflation to specific sectors in which a few firms hold massive amounts of market power — stopping short of embracing either the rhetoric or the policy response called for by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). Biden said at the end of January: “This isn’t a new issue. It’s not been the reason we’ve have high inflation today. It’s not the only reason. But, over time, it has reduced competition; squeezed out small businesses and farmers, ranchers; and increased the price for consumers.”
Part of his hesitance reflects the trepidation among his economic team about whether inflation actually is tied to corporate consolidation. Officials at CEA believe that monopoly power is a major economic problem and support the White House’s broader antitrust agenda. But these economists do not believe consolidation explains the 7.5 percent surge in prices over the last year that has created the worst inflation in four decades.
The differences among the president’s advisers are also broadly described as collegial and a difference of degree, rather than the kind of internal warfare that characterized much of the Trump administration’s economic team. Some economists have praised the White House for resisting the political temptation to make a bigger deal out of monopoly’s role in inflation.
“I think they’ve tried to be honest about the economic situation, and I, for one, appreciate that,” Baker said. “They have to make a political call about whether that’s the right decision, but I think it’s best for them to be honest and I think they’ve done that.”
The 2022 primary season is upon us. Texas is already voting and wow, do they have some whackadoodles running. Trumpist are everywhere it seems at all levels. The definition of RINO has moved far beyond any normal Overton Windown concept. Trumpist Republicans have authoritarian, theocratic, and conspiracy-ridden, anti-factual takes on US governance. Be prepared for the race to the bottom.
This report from Politico was filed by David Siders.
Republicans are embarking on a primary season that is poised to reshape the GOP for a generation, and that journey begins in Texas.
In less than two weeks, the first primary election of 2022 will take place in the nation’s second-most populous state, and it’s a blockbuster: The state’s Republican governor, attorney general and agriculture commissioner all face spirited challenges, as do several GOP House incumbents.
From there, fractious primaries will unfold across the electoral map in the coming months, cementing a more populist orientation for the GOP and Donald Trump’s status as the party’s lodestar, or setting a more traditionally conservative course.
These aren’t simple match-ups between Trump and anti-Trump forces, or isolated intraparty feuds. Safely ensconced Republican officeholders are being bombarded by challengers from coast to coast, in many cases spurred on by Trump directly. Redistricting and retirements have further scrambled the established order in many places, opening up seats and drawing fields filled with combative candidates eager to move the party in a different direction. Combine that with high levels of energy — and anger — in the party base, and it’s a recipe to remake the party from the ground up.
“Primaries are always fucked up to some degree, but it’s different now,” said John Thomas, a Republican strategist who works on House campaigns across the country. “There’s more self-hate than there was before. Ten years ago, we’d argue about who was more pro-gun, who was more pro-life. Now, my clients are going RINO hunting, which is a level of disdain that was not there before in our party.”
Much of the churn is due to forces unleashed by Trump. The defeated president’s iron grip on the party and level of involvement in midterm primaries is unprecedented in modern history, and he continues to advance his lie that the 2020 election was stolen.
The Artist’s Garden at Giverny by Claude Monet ,1900
And with that we get this AP headline to discourage Democrats at all levels “‘The brand is so toxic’: Dems fear extinction in rural US” written by Steve Peoples about Pennsylvania.
The party’s brand is so toxic in the small towns 100 miles northeast of Pittsburgh that some liberals have removed bumper stickers and yard signs and refuse to acknowledge publicly their party affiliation. These Democrats are used to being outnumbered by the local Republican majority, but as their numbers continue to dwindle, those who remain are feeling increasingly isolated and unwelcome in their own communities.
“The hatred for Democrats is just unbelievable,” said Tim Holohan, an accountant based in rural McKean County who recently encouraged his daughter to get rid of a pro-Joe Biden bumper sticker. “I feel like we’re on the run.”
The climate across rural Pennsylvania is symptomatic of a larger political problem threatening the Democratic Party heading into the November elections. Beyond losing votes in virtually every election since 2008, Democrats have been effectively ostracized from the overwhelmingly white parts of rural America, leaving party leaders with few options to reverse a cultural trend that is redefining the political landscape.
The shifting climate helped Republicans limit Democratic inroads in 2020 — the GOP actually gained House seats despite Donald Trump’s presidential loss. A year later, surging rural support enabled Republicans to claim the Virginia governorship. A small but vocal group of Democratic officials now fears the same trends will undermine their atic candidates in Ohio, Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, states that will help decide the Senate majority in November, and the White House two years after that.
Meanwhile, the Democratic Party continues to devote the vast majority of its energy, messaging and resources to voters in more populated urban and suburban areas.
In Pennsylvania, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a leading candidate in the Senate contest, insists his party can no longer afford to ignore rural voters. The former small-town mayor drove his black Dodge Ram pickup truck across five rural counties last weekend to face voters who almost never see statewide Democratic candidates.
Fetterman, wearing his signature hooded sweatshirt and gym shorts despite the freezing temperatures, described himself as a champion for “the forgotten, the marginalized and the left-behind places” as he addressed roughly 100 people inside a bingo hall in McKean County, a place Trump carried with 72% of the vote in 2020.
“These are the kind of places that matter just as much as any other place,” Fetterman said as the crowd cheered.
The Democratic Party’s struggle in rural America has been building for years. And it’s getting worse.
So, there are some stories from two swing states. Here’s one of the Texas candidates vying for the Governor primary win to run against Beto O’Rourke or another Democratic Primary winner. Try not to spit up in your mouth.
So, there are a lot of other headlines. Go find some and try not to be too depressed.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Tuesday Reads
Posted: February 15, 2022 Filed under: morning reads | Tags: Canada, Christina Yuna Lee, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, John Durham, Justin Trudeau, Marcy Wheeler, Mazars, Michael A. Sussmann, NATO, NYC Chinatown murder, Rodney Joffe, Trucker convoy, Trump Organization, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin 21 CommentsGood Morning!!
Francine van Hove, Plasirs du Matin, “Morning Pleasures,” French, 1942
There may be some movement in the Ukraine crisis. The AP reported this morning that some Russian troops are being pulled back and returned to their bases. Later the story was updated to report that Putin wants to negotiate: Putin: Russia ready to discuss confidence-building measures.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that Moscow is ready for talks with the U.S. and NATO on limits for missile deployments and military transparency.
Speaking after talks with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Putin said the U.S. and NATO rejected Moscow’s demand to keep Ukraine and other ex-Soviet nations out of NATO, halt weapons deployments near Russian borders and roll back alliance forces from Eastern Europe.
They agreed to discuss a range of security measures that Russia had previously proposed.
Putin said that Russia is ready to engage in talks on limits on the deployment of intermediate range missiles in Europe, transparency of drills and other confidence-building measures but emphasized the need for the West to heed Russia’s main demands.
The statement followed the Russian Defense Ministry’s announced a partial pullback of troops after military drills, adding to hopes that the Kremlin may not be planning to invade Ukraine imminently. The Russian military gave no details on where the troops were pulling back from, or how many.
From The Washington Post: Russia says some troops withdrawing from Ukraine’s border; NATO chief notes ‘cautious optimism’ but sees no de-escalation yet.
I’m sure you’ve heard about the legal filing by John Durham, the special counsel appointed by Bill Barr to investigate the Russia investigation, that implied some kind of sinister activity by the Clinton campaign in 2016. The right wing media has been going nuts over this, but it’s basically meaningless. Charlie Savage explains at The New York Times: Court Filing Started a Furor in Right-Wing Outlets, but Their Narrative Is Off Track.
When John H. Durham, the Trump-era special counsel investigating the inquiry into Russia’s 2016 election interference, filed a pretrial motion on Friday night, he slipped in a few extra sentences that set off a furor among right-wing outlets about purported spying on former President Donald J. Trump.
But the entire narrative appeared to be mostly wrong or old news — the latest example of the challenge created by a barrage of similar conspiracy theories from Mr. Trump and his allies.
Upon close inspection, these narratives are often based on a misleading presentation of the facts or outright misinformation. They also tend to involve dense and obscure issues, so dissecting them requires asking readers to expend significant mental energy and time — raising the question of whether news outlets should even cover such claims. Yet Trump allies portray the news media as engaged in a cover-up if they don’t.
The latest example began with the motion Mr. Durham filed in a case he has brought against Michael A. Sussmann, a cybersecurity lawyer with links to the Democratic Party. The prosecutor has accused Mr. Sussmann of lying during a September 2016 meeting with an F.B.I. official about Mr. Trump’s possible links to Russia.
The filing was ostensibly about potential conflicts of interest. But it also recounted a meeting at which Mr. Sussmann had presented other suspicions to the government. In February 2017, Mr. Sussmann told the C.I.A. about odd internet data suggesting that someone using a Russian-made smartphone may have been connecting to networks at Trump Tower and the White House, among other places.
Mr. Sussmann had obtained that information from a client, a technology executive named Rodney Joffe. Another paragraph in the court filing said that Mr. Joffe’s company, Neustar, had helped maintain internet-related servers for the White House, and that he and his associates “exploited this arrangement” by mining certain records to gather derogatory information about Mr. Trump.
Mary Cassatt, Breakfast in Bed, 1897
The right wingers are thrilled by this story, but it’s complete bullshit.
The conservative media also skewed what the filing said. For example, Mr. Durham’s filing never used the word “infiltrate.” And it never claimed that Mr. Joffe’s company was being paid by the Clinton campaign.
Most important, contrary to the reporting, the filing never said the White House data that came under scrutiny was from the Trump era. According to lawyers for David Dagon, a Georgia Institute of Technology data scientist who helped develop the Yota analysis, the data — so-called DNS logs, which are records of when computers or smartphones have prepared to communicate with servers over the internet — came from Barack Obama’s presidency.
“What Trump and some news outlets are saying is wrong,” said Jody Westby and Mark Rasch, both lawyers for Mr. Dagon. “The cybersecurity researchers were investigating malware in the White House, not spying on the Trump campaign, and to our knowledge all of the data they used was nonprivate DNS data from before Trump took office.”
In a statement, a spokesperson for Mr. Joffe said that “contrary to the allegations in this recent filing,” he was apolitical, did not work for any political party, and had lawful access under a contract to work with others to analyze DNS data — including from the White House — for the purpose of hunting for security breaches or threats.
Marcy Wheeler has been covering this story since the beginning. You can read what she has to say in these posts at her Emptywheel blog:
John Durham, Ask Not For Whom The Statute of Limitation Tolls…
John Durham Chose To Meet With John Ratcliffe Rather Than Witnesses Necessary To His Investigation.
This is a horrific story about a possible hate crime from The New York Times: Screams That ‘Went Quiet’: Prosecutors’ Account of Chinatown Killing.
Police officers who responded to a 911 call about a disturbance in a Lower Manhattan building on Sunday heard a woman screaming when they reached the sixth floor, but the door to the apartment where the screams had come from was locked.
Morning Coffee, by Harry Roseland
As police struggled with the door, at first they still heard her calls for help, but “then she went quiet,” a prosecutor, Dafna Yoran, said in a Manhattan Criminal Court hearing on Monday night. Another voice emerged, sounding like a woman and telling them, “‘We don’t need the police here — go away.’”
When a specialized police unit arrived and broke down the door, they found Christina Yuna Lee, 35, dead in her bathtub with more than 40 stab wounds. The second voice, Ms. Yoran said, was actually that of Assamad Nash, who had followed the victim into the building on Chrystie Street in Chinatown, forced his way into her home and stabbed her.
When officers broke into the apartment, the police found Mr. Nash hiding under a bed and the knife believed to be the murder weapon hidden behind a dresser, prosecutors said.
It’s not yet clear why Ms. Lee was targeted, but the Asian community in New York is terrified.
Mr. Nash, 25, whose last known address was a men’s homeless shelter in the Bowery, was arraigned on first-degree charges of murder, burglary and sexually motivated burglary. A judge ordered him held without bail, and prosecutors said he was facing a sentence of up to 25 years to life in prison if convicted.
Though the authorities have not determined that Ms. Lee was targeted because of her ethnicity, her killing stoked fears in the city’s Asian community, which was already on edge after a rise in attacks during the pandemic.
Her killing also fit a pattern that has become an unsettlingly common feature of the pandemic in New York City: a seemingly unprovoked attack in which the person charged is a homeless man. In many neighborhoods in Manhattan, residents have expressed growing concern about homeless people, some of whom seem to be struggling with mental illness, menacing and harassing passers-by.
Ms. Lee, who graduated from Rutgers University in 2008 with a bachelor’s degree in art history, worked as a creative producer for Splice, an online music platform based in New York City. The company said in a statement that it was heartbroken over her “senseless” death.
Read the rest at the NYT.
One more story on the trucker blockade story from The Washington Post: ‘Freedom Convoy,’ police face off near U.S.-Canada border crossings as Trudeau invokes Emergencies Act.
There’s a lot happening in the news today. What stories have you been following?
Monday Reads: Once again, I manage to avoid the Stupor Bowl
Posted: February 14, 2022 Filed under: just because | Tags: Black Lives Matter, Half Time, Puppy Bowl, Stupor Bowl 29 Comments
The Kingfisher, Vincent van Gogh. 1886
Good Day Sky Dancers!
We’re beginning to see signs of spring around here so that’s a good thing!! There are patches of green grass and bird arrivals. I also like spring so we get beyond the national Panem et circenses frenzy. It drags on longer than National Crass Consumerism Season. We’re deep into Carnival here and the parades are back on the streets of New Orleans. I always wonder why the greedy and rich always co-opt perfectly wonderful festivals celebrating the passage of the season and turn them into ordeals requiring mass credit card spending, ads, and tourists.
However, I did miss this sight which reminds me of me when I had to go to football games with my father and occasionally my mother. I loved the time with my Dad but it took me about two seconds to drag a book out to read through the rest of the game. The best part was the Cheese Frenchie, Onion Rings, and chocolate malted at King’s in downtown Lincoln prior to the the parking spot at the stadium and mass crowd chaos.
The only other thing I used to do at the University of Nebraska games was to stand up and cheer when the opposing team scored. We sat on the fifty-yard line in the 20th row right behind the marching band and close enough to throw stuff at the cheerleaders. I never indulged in any of that but I especially enjoyed singing Boomer Sooner. I knew all the words because that’s where I was born and my Dad went to Law School there. It was enough to irritate people but back then you just got dirty looks. Nebraska ruled college football at the time and their rival was always Oklahoma.
I also had the pleasure of reading through a Stupor Bowl in LA back in the day although my dad was a Ford Dealer and not part of the NFL players like Andrew Whitworth. Good for whoever Whitworth is because he’s got himself a nerdy, book-reading daughter!
Little Owl – Albrecht Dürer (1506)
The other parts of the Stupor Bowl–and I name this for the fans and not for the poor players who wind up severely brain damaged with CTE–are the ads, the halftime, and the Puppy Bowl. So, let’s just say that paying all that money to hype a product seems crazy but it must work. Hence, the costs of living in an oligopolistic monopoly-based failed market. The Puppy Bowl is damned cute. I missed it since I worked through the entire shindig but the country’s First Puppy stole that show! The best thing about this huge ad campaign was the game was dedicated to animal rights activist Betty White. Team Fluff won the game! (via Daily Beast)
In what may prove to be the most important sports-related story this Sunday, Team Fluff snatched victory out of the tiny jaws of defeat in Puppy Bowl XVIII. Following a fur-ocious three-hour battle, Fluff edged out Team Ruff with a final score of 73-69. The eighteenth iteration of the Puppy Bowl saw 118 adoptable puppies competing for the “Lombarky” Trophy by dragging chew toys around the miniature field. Representing more than 60 shelters and rescues in 33 states, this year’s lineup also featured a record number of puppies with special needs, including Benny, a goldendoodle with partial paralysis who used a set of rear support wheels to race around the field. Benny was also crowned the 2022 Puppy Bowl’s “Most Pupular” player. And, most importantly, “every Puppy Bowl ends with every single dog being adopted,” longtime referee Dan Schachner told the New York Post.
The Threatened Swan – Jan Asselijn (1650)
So, there are a few noteworthy things about the half-time show. And no, it’s not Snoop Dog’s toke prior to his appearance. That’s par for the course and perfectly legal in California.
Eminem–bless his bad 49-year-old ass–took the knee to remind everyone that black lives matter.
My youngest daughter–then a middle schooler–came with me to spend the holidays in NYC. The first thing she wanted to do was go see 8 Mile and so I splurged for the tremendously expensive tix and we headed to the movie theatre in the East Village. She had been playing the heck out of the CD on my laptop and was indulged by my then-boyfriend when we spent time with him in Harlem. He had very large speakers. This was 2002 so back in the good old days. I am familiar with him and rap in general. I was substitute teaching in a music class and let the kids play vinyl back in 1979. I got my first introduction to rap at Omaha Tech High School!
Well, good for Eminem! He may be middle aged, white, and rich but at least he still knows where he came from. Dr Dre set the whole thing up and was Eminem’s mentor. The genre has grown a lot since then.
On Sunday, Eminem knelt and held his head in his hand after performing “Lose Yourself,” his anthem about self-determination from the movie “8 Mile.”
Air – Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1566)
I haven’t seen it but I plan to because the royalty of early 21st-century rap performed and some bonus artists showed up. Plus, Mary Ann Blige …
Blige, whose 14th studio LP, “Good Morning Gorgeous,” arrived on Friday, sang two of her most beloved older anthems, “Family Affair” and “No More Drama,” reaching deep for some powerful high notes and ending the set flat on her back.
However, I agree with this headline in MSNBC: “NFL Super Bowl halftime show was a master class in gaslighting. The Dr. Dre-led performance was awesome — but it played into the NFL’s plan to distract from the league’s race and gender issues.” It’s written by Ja’han Jones. It seemed like awfully convenient timing to present black artists. There were also some “gender issues” present in the performances.
The mini-concert was an undeniable smash hit, featuring Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg performing their classics together, 50 Cent rapping upside-down like it was 2003, along with Mary J. Blige, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar and even Anderson .Paak on the drums.
Theirs was one in a number of acts that constituted what was arguably the Blackest night in NFL history, withgospel duo Mary Mary, country music star Mickey Guyton and R&B singer Jhené Aiko performing ahead of the kickoff.
And, most importantly to the NFL, there were virtually no references to the league’s sordid racial politics, exposed in recent years by its treatment of former San Francisco49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick and allegations of systemic racism from former Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores. (The league denies such allegations.)
The only thing even approaching a critique was Eminem taking a knee in a purported act of solidarity with racial justice activists.
Watching it in real time, I wasn’t sure whether that was a form of protest or a performance miscue, and if you have to question whether a protest is a protest … it probably isn’t.
The league did seem to convey its racial ideology in another way some may not have realized, though. During Lamar’s performance of the protest song “Alright,” a lyric was conspicuously censored to remove a line critical of police who kill.
The line — “and we hate po-po, when they kill us dead in the street, fo’ sho’” — was scrubbed of any reference to the police at all.It seems the NFL won’t even tolerate criticism of police in an imagined-yet-realistic scenario of anti-Black violence.
So, about those gender issues which were mostly hidden by a stupid tweet by some right-wing troll, I had never heard about. Well, he’s all over Twitter so he got his share of 3 minutes of fame. So wtf is Sexual Anarchy? It sounds like a 70s metal band name. I’ve got dibs on it for my next band’s name!!!
Kirk’s tweet, which he did not care to explain any further, drew all kinds of responses from critics on the left, many of whom derided Kirk over his prudish tendencies.
“I’ve been trying to figure out what Charlie Kirk means by ‘sexual anarchy,'” tweeted attorney Ron Filipkowski. “I’m not exactly sure, but I think it’s probably better than whatever the opposite is.”
Peacock and Peacock Butterfly – Archibald Thorburn (1917)
Still, there was a lot of that Rapper vibe in the show which means a lot of women dancing provocatively with scant clothing. Dance has mostly always been that way but anyway, I’m not a dance critic but I do have issues with hyper-sexualizing black women for the pleasure of men. Historically, that never ends well.
So, I have to make a disclosure here. I worked the Gentilly Stage for Jazz Fest for many years as part of the front-of-the-house sound team. I have seen a lot of performers in my day on that stage and set up their kits, microphones, and instruments. My thrill was to mic Etta James. That’s closely followed by setting up the piano mics for Randy Newman then watching over his two small children side stage. I don’t want to turn this into a name game but let’s say I’ve happily helped a lot of talent of all flavors. The guy I really didn’t like was Elvis Costello but, oh well. However, I boycotted and refused to deal with 50 Cent and I was not the only one back in the day. I did not make a scene but I clearly let it be known I thought his treatment of women was appalling and I would not enable it. He showed up in “Da Club” last night with that same schtick.
After Snoop and Dre combined for “The Next Episode” and “California Love” to kick off the halftime show, the camera panned down to 50, upside down and flexing, just as he did to kick off the “In Da Club” music video 19 years ago. 50 Cent was soon joined by a slew of dancers to bounce to the rap classic, and he then threw the performance to Mary J. Blige, who sank into “Family Affair.”
Maybe, that’s where the sexual anarchy term came from, I don’t know. Like I said, I was working and not watching. I think displays of sexuality are fine. I’m cool with exuberant dancing. New Orleans represents all of that and more! All people are sexual beings. But,I still object to the objectification of women for the benefit of men. So, if I missed the cues on this I’ll go look but I’m not sure. I’m open to input.
So, of all the people to do a Super Bowl wrap-up, it shouldn’t be me but there it is. BTW, who won the game?
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
dakinikat
ecocatwoman
mablue2
Mama Lopez
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
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