Thursday Reads
Posted: May 27, 2021 Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: China, Covid-19, immunity, Joe Biden, mass shootings, Q-Anon, Sam Cassidy, violence against women, Wuhan lab leak theory 31 CommentsGood Morning!!
On Tuesday, I wrote about the sudden mainstreaming of the so-called “lab leak theory” of the origins of Covid-19 in China. Today David Leonhardt has an “explainer” of this sudden attention to this long-dismissed notion.
Suddenly, talk of the Wuhan lab-leak theory seems to be everywhere.
President Biden yesterday called on U.S. intelligence officials to “redouble their efforts” to determine the origin of Covid-19 and figure out whether the virus that causes it accidentally leaked from a Chinese laboratory. Major publications and social media have recently been filled with discussion of the subject.
The origin of the virus remains unclear. Many scientists have long believed that the most likely explanation is that it jumped from an animal to a person, possibly at a food market in Wuhan, China, in late 2019. Animal-to human transmission — known as zoonotic spillover — is a common origin story for viruses, including Ebola and some bird flus.But some scientists have pointed to another possibility: that it escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. As in other laboratories, researchers there sometimes modify viruses, to understand and treat them.
“It is most likely that this is a virus that arose naturally, but we cannot exclude the possibility of some kind of a lab accident,” Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, told senators yesterday.
Leonhardt writes–as I did on Tuesday–that the reason this is suddenly getting so much attention is because a number of scientists have recently argued that the lab leak theory should be investigated.
Among the reasons: Chinese officials have refused to allow an independent investigation into the lab and have failed to explain some inconsistencies in the animal-to-human hypothesis. Most of the first confirmed cases had no evident link to the food market.
But has anything really changed?
In some ways, not much has not changed. From the beginning, the virus’s origin has been unclear. All along, some scientists, politicians and journalists have argued that the lab-leak theory deserves consideration.
Almost 15 months ago, two Chinese researchers wrote a paper concluding that the virus “probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan.” Alina Chan, a molecular biologist affiliated with Harvard and M.I.T., made similar arguments. David Ignatius and Josh Rogin, both Washington Post columnists, wrote about the possibility more than a year ago. Joe Biden, then a presidential candidate, didn’t mention the lab-leak theory in early 2020 but he did argue that the U.S. should “not be taking China’s word” for how the outbreak started.
But these voices were in the minority. The World Health Organization initially dismissed the lab-leak theory as implausible.
Read the rest at the link–I’ve probably quoted too much.
If you read the comments on the Tuesday post, you know that Quixote, who is quite knowledgeable on this subject, vehemently argued against the lab leak theory. Quixote posted another comment yesterday that I didn’t see until this morning:
The virus isn’t engineered because you can tell by the RNA sequence. If it had been, the inserted bits will be obvious when you compare it to related viruses. Sort of like Frankenstein’s monster is visibly sewn together from parts that don’t go together.
The early cases don’t particularly center on the lab or on people associated with it. They’re outside Wuhan, inside Wuhan, at the abandoned mine / bat cave, at the captured animal food market, and so on. The pattern is what you’d see if a virus mutated to be able to infect people, but wasn’t very good at it yet, and had been moving through the population for a while. In the course of simmering through the population, the most successful virus would be the one that changed enough to infect people easily.
It had enough time to do that, and that was exactly the threat the Wuhan lab, and also CDC people there, were looking for. (Trump, by the way, cut funding for both of those because what the hell do we need to be paying people in China for.) The danger was noticed by Chinese doctors (one of whom soon died of the disease) who tried hard to alert the world. They were squelched by the government. If the CDC people had still been there, it would have been a lot harder to squelch.
So tl:dr; no evidence covid19 was an intentional bioweapon thing. Poor evidence that it could have unintentionally leaked. It’s a fact that the attempted coverup by the Chinese let the pandemic get going. If procedures at the lab need improving, they certainly should be.
The other things you mention about China are all true. (Tibet too. Never forget Tibet.) It’s been obvious for decades that China was going to abuse whatever power it could get. But that’s another whole train of thought.
As bad as they are, covid19 does not fit the lab leak story at all well. Both things can be true: they’re bad and covid was an incompetent accident made infinitely worse by self-serving dictators all over the world, including China.
I agree that there certainly is no evidence for the lab leak theory. The only reason I thought there could be something to it was that several people in the lab got sick with something that looked like Covid-19 and were hospitalized. I thought they could have gotten the virus from the cave samples–not that the virus was engineered in the lab–and that somehow the virus got into the population that way. But there is no way to ever know if this happened, as China would never cooperate with any investigation.
Now that Biden has ordered an investigation, we will likely hear more about this, but I can’t see how we’re ever going to know for sure how the virus originated. The crossover from animal to human explanation makes the most sense.
It’s also worth checking out this thread on Twitter by a China expert.
In other Covid-19 news, The New York Times reports that two studies have found that Immunity to the Coronavirus May Persist for Years.
Immunity to the coronavirus lasts at least a year, possibly a lifetime, improving over time especially after vaccination, according to two new studies. The findings may help put to rest lingering fears that protection against the virus will be short-lived.
19 Faces of Covid-19, by Suzon Lucore
Together, the studies suggest that most people who have recovered from Covid-19 and who were later immunized will not need boosters. Vaccinated people who were never infected most likely will need the shots, however, as will a minority who were infected but did not produce a robust immune response.
Both reports looked at people who had been exposed to the coronavirus about a year earlier. Cells that retain a memory of the virus persist in the bone marrow and may churn out antibodies whenever needed, according to one of the studies, published on Monday in the journal Nature.
The other study, posted online at BioRxiv, a site for biology research, found that these so-called memory B cells continue to mature and strengthen for at least 12 months after the initial infection.
“The papers are consistent with the growing body of literature that suggests that immunity elicited by infection and vaccination for SARS-CoV-2 appears to be long-lived,” said Scott Hensley, an immunologist at the University of Pennsylvania who was not involved in the research.
Read more at the NYT.
There was another mass shooting yesterday–so what else is new?
It’s also not new that the perpetrator had a history of violence against women. Fox News: San Jose shooting leaves 9 dead, deceased suspect identified; victims shot in separate buildings.
The eight people initially killed by a gunman at a Northern California rail yard Wednesday morning were shot in two separate buildings before the suspected shooter took his own life, authorities said Wednesday.
A ninth victim died in a hospital late Wednesday evening, authorities said.
The mass shooting epidemic, credit Dana Gornall
Santa Clara Sheriff Laurie Smith expressed her grief for the families of the victims before praising the quick response of law enforcement officers who went into a Valley Transportation Authority building as the active shooting was happening. She said deputies and San Jose police officers were the first on the scene.
The suspect was identified Wednesday as Samuel Cassidy, 57, who was a VTA employee, officials said. No motive is known for the shooting at this time.
An ex-girlfriend told the San Francisco Chronicle he was prone to alcohol-fueled mood swings and had been accused in a March 2009 court filing of rape and abuse. The documents were filed in response to a domestic violence restraining order that Cassidy had filed earlier that month.
The former girlfriend alleged his mood swings worsened when he drank alcohol and that he played “several mind games which he seems to enjoy.” She listed several incidents of alleged sexual assault in which he would hold her arms and force his weight onto her.
He would apologize and promised to never do it again afterward, the report said.
(Emphasis added)
Cassidy’s ex-wife said he had threated workplace violence years ago. KCRA3.com: What we know about Sam Cassidy, the suspect in the San Jose VTA shooting.
The man who opened fire Wednesday at a rail yard in San Jose, killing nine other people and ending his own life, has been identified as 57-year-old Sam Cassidy. He was an employee of the Valley Transportation Authority, which provides bus, light rail and other transit services throughout Santa Clara County, authorities said.
Cassidy was identified as a maintenance worker at the Valley Transportation Authority….
According to The Associated Press, Cassidy had talked to his ex-wife about killing people at work more than a decade ago.
“I never believed him, and it never happened. Until now,” a tearful Cecilia Nelms told The Associated Press.
She said he used to come home from work resentful and angry over what he perceived as unfair assignments.
“He could dwell on things,” she said. The two were married for about 10 years until a 2005 divorce filing and she hadn’t been in touch with Cassidy for about 13 years, Nelms said.
I’m still perplexed and fascinated by the Q-Anon phenomenon. There a couple of stories about it today.
NBC News: Study finds nearly one-in-five Americans believe QAnon conspiracy theories.
Washington, we have a problem — politically, informationally and societally — when 15 percent of Americans agree with the QAnon statement that the U.S. government, media and financial worlds “are controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who run a global child sex trafficking operation.”
Or when 20 percent agree with this statement: “There is a storm coming soon that will sweep away the elites in power and restore the rightful leaders.”
Or when another 15 percent agree that “Because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.”
These are the results of a PRRI-IFYC study that was conducted online March 8-30, but that was just released Thursday.
And the study finds that Republicans, those who trust far-right news outlets like OANN and Newsmax, and white evangelicals and Hispanic Protestants are all more likely to believe these statements than other Americans.
It’s hard to call something fringe when approximately one-in-five Americans believe these statements, especially one that true patriots “may have to resort to violence” to save the country.
Here’s the PRRI story: Understanding QAnon’s Connection to American Politics, Religion, and Media Consumption.
Three Components of the QAnon Conspiracy Movement
The far-right conspiracy theory movement known as QAnon emerged on the internet in late 2017 and gained traction throughout former president Donald Trump’s time in office. QAnon’s core theory revolves around Satan-worshipping pedophiles plotting against Trump and a coming “storm” that would clear out those evil forces, but the movement has also been described as a “big tent conspiracy theory” that involves a constantly evolving web of schemes about politicians, celebrities, bankers, and the media, as well as echoes of older movements within Christianity, such as Gnosticism.
To understand how this loosely connected belief system is influencing American politics, religion, and media, we fielded three questions, each containing a tenet of the QAnon conspiracy movement….
QAnon Beliefs and Partisanship
A nontrivial 15% of Americans agree with the sweeping QAnon allegation that “the government, media, and financial worlds in the U.S. are controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who run a global child sex trafficking operation,” while the vast majority of Americans (82%) disagree with this statement. Republicans (23%) are significantly more likely than independents (14%) and Democrats (8%) to agree that the government, media, and financial worlds in the U.S. are controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who run a global child sex trafficking operation.
Similarly, one in five Americans (20%) agree with the statement “There is a storm coming soon that will sweep away the elites in power and restore the rightful leaders,” while a majority (77%) disagree. Nearly three in ten Republicans (28%), compared to 18% of independents and 14% of Democrats, agree with this secondary QAnon conspiracy theory. Trends among demographic groups are similar to those of the core QAnon conspiracy theory.
Fifteen percent of Americans agree that “Because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country,” while the vast majority (85%) disagree. Republicans (28%) are twice as likely as independents (13%) and four times as likely as Democrats (7%) to agree that because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence.
Click the link to read the rest.
So…that’s a mixed bag of news for you. What else is happening? As always, this is an open thread.
Tuesday Reads: The Wuhan Lab Leak Theory
Posted: May 25, 2021 Filed under: just because 19 Comments
Wuhan Institute of Virology, where workers fell ill with a Covid-19-like virus in Nov. 2019.
Good Morning!!
We appear to be approaching the end of the pandemic, at least in the US. Now suddenly scientists and journalists are looking more closely at the origins of Covid-19 and seriously considering the theory that the virus escaped from a lab in China.
On May 14, Science Magazine published this letter from 18 scientists: Investigate the origins of COVID-19. The gist is that investigators have not given sufficient attention to the possibility that the virus could have escaped from a lab.
In May 2020, the World Health Assembly requested that the World Health Organization (WHO) director-general work closely with partners to determine the origins of SARS-CoV-2 (2). In November, the Terms of Reference for a China–WHO joint study were released (3). The information, data, and samples for the study’s first phase were collected and summarized by the Chinese half of the team; the rest of the team built on this analysis. Although there were no findings in clear support of either a natural spillover or a lab accident, the team assessed a zoonotic spillover from an intermediate host as “likely to very likely,” and a laboratory incident as “extremely unlikely” [(4), p. 9]. Furthermore, the two theories were not given balanced consideration. Only 4 of the 313 pages of the report and its annexes addressed the possibility of a laboratory accident (4). Notably, WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus commented that the report’s consideration of evidence supporting a laboratory accident was insufficient and offered to provide additional resources to fully evaluate the possibility (5).
As scientists with relevant expertise, we agree with the WHO director-general (5), the United States and 13 other countries (6), and the European Union (7) that greater clarity about the origins of this pandemic is necessary and feasible to achieve. We must take hypotheses about both natural and laboratory spillovers seriously until we have sufficient data.
This week, the questions about Covid-19’s origins are all over the news. Here’s a sampling:
CNN: New information on Wuhan researchers’ illness furthers debate on pandemic origins.
A US intelligence report found that several researchers at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology fell ill in November 2019 and had to be hospitalized, a new detail about the severity of their symptoms that could fuel further debate about the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, according to two people briefed on the intelligence.
A State Department fact sheet released by the Trump administration in January said that the researchers had gotten sick in autumn 2019 but did not go as far as to say they had been hospitalized. China reported to the World Health Organization that the first patient with Covid-like symptoms was recorded in Wuhan on December 8, 2019.
The Wall Street Journal first reported on the intelligence surrounding the earlier hospitalizations.
Importantly, the intelligence community still does not know what the researchers were actually sick with, said the people briefed, and continues to have low confidence in its assessments of the virus’ precise origins beyond the fact that it came from China. “At the end of the day, there is still nothing definitive,” said one of the people who has seen the intelligence.
The director of the Wuhan National Biosafety Lab, which is part of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, issued a strong denial of the report on Monday.
“I’ve read it, it’s a complete lie,” director Yuan Zhiming told state-run tabloid Global Times. “Those claims are groundless. The lab has not been aware of this situation, and I don’t even know where such information came from.”
From The Wall Street Journal today: The Wuhan Lab Leak Question: A Disused Chinese Mine Takes Center Stage.
This is the subterranean home of the closest known virus on Earth to the one that causes Covid-19. It is also now a touchpoint for escalating calls for a more thorough probe into whether the pandemic could have stemmed from a Chinese laboratory.
In April 2012, six miners here fell sick with a mysterious illness after entering the mine to clear bat guano. Three of them died.
Chinese scientists from the Wuhan Institute of Virology were called in to investigate and, after taking samples from bats in the mine, identified several new coronaviruses.
Now, unanswered questions about the miners’ illness, the viruses found at the site and the research done with them have elevated into the mainstream an idea once dismissed as a conspiracy theory: that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, might have leaked from a lab in Wuhan, the city where the first cases were found in December 2019.
The lab researchers thus far haven’t provided full and prompt answers, and there have been discrepancies in some information they have released. That has led to demands by leading scientists for a deeper investigation into the Wuhan institute and whether the pandemic virus could have been in its labs and escaped.
Even some senior public-health officials who consider that possibility improbable now back the idea of a fuller probe. They say a World Health Organization-led team had insufficient access in Wuhan earlier this year to reach its conclusion that a lab leak was “extremely unlikely.”
A growing number, however, including the director-general of the WHO and a prominent U.S. researcher who has worked with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, agree that the WIV needs to provide more information about its work to categorically rule out a lab spill.
There’s more at the link. I got through the paywall–hope it keeps working.
The Washington Post Fact Checker: Timeline: How the Wuhan lab-leak theory suddenly became credible.
But the bigger issue, for Schachtel is China’s behavior.
If the lab leak thesis is true, this implicates the Chinese government in a tremendous scandal of global proportions. It also necessitates a discussion over what China could have done to curtail the spread of the virus before it touched every corner of the globe. If U.S. intelligence reports are correct, China did not sound the alarm about the virus and inform the world about it until well over a month after “patient zero” got sick….
China has been on offense regarding the lab leak theory since the very beginning. Beijing has used its political weapons, such as the World Health Organization, in addition to its economic and trade pressure, to viciously attack any individual or entity that dares to bring up the lab leak theory in a formal setting. Beijing has used tremendous political capital to delegitimize the lab leak theory. While this does not mean China is guilty, it does make for ultra suspicious behavior.
What do you think? I’ll be interested to know what our and biology and medicine experts Quixote and Luna have to say about this issue. Of course, this is still an open thread.
Monday Reads: Just Plain Tired Reads
Posted: May 24, 2021 Filed under: New Orleans, open thread 8 Comments
Good Day Sky Dancers!
I’m going to really cop out on you today because I’m exhausted and I need to finish my grades. A good deal of the reason for the exhaustion is the hell realm that’s been my street lately. The Tourists are back and they’ve joined in with the local colony of hipsters to search out every nuisance business and event in the area and wander around like lost toddlers.
A 3 day a week rave in the Navy yard with its dusk to dawn thumpa thumpa music and skateboarding and skating while breaking and entering, trespassing, and noise ordinance violating has driven me to call the police and I’m calling the mayor and my city council member next. Last week I found myself hoping that the Chinese space rocket would take out the entire Navy base and a few other select buildings in the area. The Desk Sargent at the local precinct keeps telling me I’m not the only sleep-deprived local asking for help with the noise and zoning violations going on around here. (Yes we have laws here!)
You can’t sit on your porch during Tourist infestations because they assume you’re just a Disneyland like freebie for them invading your neighborhood so they can ask you dumb questions like “where’s the nearest Applebees”? It came from an elderly couple so I told them out by the airport–which is true–but I really wanted to say something like Topeka, Kansas. I suggest you visit there instead. If it was one of these colonizers I’d suggest the middle of Lake Ponchartrain during Hurricane Season.
So, the entire night, 911 call and all came to a blaring stop when we had one of the largest Formosan Termite swarms that I’d ever experienced. It seems Jerky Hipsters, Ugly American Tourists, and Colonizers can’t tolerate the little beasts. It was so bad that a few found a crack in my bedroom window and headed towards my desk lamp. I pulled the window down immediately followed by the black-out shades in my bedroom I installed to save my life from the Air BNB invaders at the AirBnbs on both sides of me.
If you stay every use an AirBnb I’m pretty sure I can’t talk to you ever again. You have no idea how miserable it makes the lives of locals all over the planet. Stay in a damn hotel or any of the lovely motor Inns out by the Airport! Thank you very much!
So … the Onion sent me the perfect article for me to post for this Open thread.
Enticing potential bookers with the apartment’s best features, a New Orleans Airbnb reportedly touted Monday its location in the heart of the city’s historic Airbnb quarter. “Located mere steps from a wide array of other Airbnbs, this apartment is the perfect spot for a couple or two friends to explore the sights and sounds of the Big Easy’s iconic Airbnb district,” read the listing in part, adding that the apartment was located on the top floor of a beautiful gut-rehabbed building dating all the way back to 2009. “A private and spacious apartment located right where a 1852 Creole cottage used to be, our year-round rental offers incredible views of dozens of other Airbnbs with a long and storied tradition of hosting bachelorette parties and boys’ weekends. Upon your arrival, you’ll find we’ve even made a little walking tour of all the best short-term rentals dotting the Airbnb Quarter, or you can strike out on your own, and who knows? While you’re out getting coffee and beignets, you might even find yourself stumbling upon some of the oldest Airbnbs in the city.” The apartment listing also touted the benefits of staying near the colorful local community, encouraging customers to experience firsthand New Orleans’ famous Instacart and UberEats delivery drivers.
They forgot to add you can have fun treating the locals like your private concierge and ensuring every neighborhood bar now has conversations worthy of the Applebee’s in Topeka, Kansas.
Note: No Termites were hurt during this particular snark session where I whine about the worst business models ever necessary because no one can make a real living at anything else.
You may discuss amongst yourselves or completely change the topic.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
https://twitter.com/jamssfield/status/1390153813378621440
Lazy Caturday Reads
Posted: May 22, 2021 Filed under: just because 9 Comments
Cat on books by Addy Balajadia
Good Morning!!
There’s a gossipy new book out by a reporter I don’t like very much–Edward Isaac-Dovere. He used to write for Politico and he’s now at The Atlantic. You’ve probably heard about what he wrote about Obama’s opinions of Trump. This is from an interview at The Atlantic by Caroline Nimbs Nyce.
I caught up with Isaac, an Atlantic staff writer who covers elections and the author of the upcoming book Battle for the Soul: Inside the Democrats’ Campaigns to Defeat Trump, to discuss how Biden’s and Obama’s respective approaches to the 45th president have changed over time….
Initially, President Obama seemed pretty restrained when commenting on the 45th president. What was going on behind the scenes?
Obama definitely did not think Donald Trump was qualified to be president. He had a very cautious approach in public to what he said about Trump. But people would push him. Staff members and donors were trying to get him to talk about what he thought about Trump.
And occasionally, he would let something slip and he would say things like, Trump’s a “fucking lunatic.” Or “I didn’t think it would be this bad.” Or even “I didn’t think we’d have a racist, sexist pig.”
At one point, he’s seeing the news reports about when Trump had the Russian ambassador into the Oval Office, and he says, “corrupt motherfucker.”
I don’t think anybody ever imagined that Barack Obama was a Trump voter. But the clarity and the harshness of his view was surprising to many people.
And from The Guardian: ‘Madman … racist, sexist pig’: new book details Obama’s real thoughts on Trump.
For much of Donald Trump’s presidency, Barack Obama largely abided by the convention that former presidents do not publicly criticize or attack their successors.
Obama jettisoned any such caution during the 2020 election that put his own vice-president, Joe Biden, in the White House. But behind the scenes, with donors and advisers, Obama was reportedly much more candid.
According to a new book, Obama called Trump a “madman”, a “racist, sexist pig”, “that fucking lunatic” and a “corrupt motherfucker”.
The remarks are reported in Battle for the Soul: Inside the Democrats’ Campaigns to Defeat Donald Trump by Edward-Isaac Dovere, a staff writer at the Atlantic, which will be published next week. The Guardian obtained a copy.
Trump’s loathing for Obama is well-known and oft-expressed, beginning with his championing of the racist birther conspiracy which said Obama was not qualified to be president.
Painting by Deborah DeWit-Marchant
Obama’s feelings are well-known, but have rarely been reported in such blunt detail.
Dovere reports that Obama first preferred the prospect of Trump as president to Ted Cruz, because Trump was nowhere near as clever as the hard-right Texas senator, the runner-up in the Republican primary in 2016.
But from 2017, as reality swiftly set in, Obama reacted like many in the US and around the world.
“He’s a madman,” Dovere reports Obama telling “big donors looking to squeeze a reaction out of him in exchange for the big checks they were writing to his foundation”.
“More often: ‘I didn’t think it would be this bad.’ Sometimes: ‘I didn’t think we’d have a racist, sexist pig.’ Depending on the outrage of the day … a passing ‘that fucking lunatic’ with a shake of his head.”
Obama’s strongest remark, Dovere reports, was prompted by reports that Trump was speaking to foreign leaders – including Vladimir Putin, amid the investigation of Russian election interference and links between Trump and Moscow – without any aides on the call.
“‘That corrupt motherfucker,’ he remarked.”
I’m not sure why anyone would find Obama’s opinions on Trump surprising. I’m glad it’s out there publicly now, but I suppose it will provide fodder for the Trumpist maniacs.
While we’re looking back at the 2016 election, there’s an interesting piece at Just Security by former CIA intel officer John Sipher: Same Data, Same Strategy: A New Look at How the Trump Campaign and Russian Intelligence Operated in 2016. Sipher takes a new look at Paul Manafort’s relationship with Konstantin Kilimnik–how he passed Trump campaign polling data to the Russian Spy. We now know that Kilimnik turned the data over to the Russian government.
The recent Biden administration sanctions on the Russian government are part of an ongoing effort to push back against the Kremlin’s malign influence campaign against the West. Although the White House actions are related to Russian attempts to interfere with the 2020 election, included in the announcement is a detail that has reinvigorated interest in the 2016 election and the Trump campaign’s potential connivance with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intelligence services.
In the announcement, the Treasury Department disclosed that in 2016, Russian intelligence officer Konstantin Kilimnik “provided the Russian Intelligence Services with sensitive information on polling and campaign strategy” that he received directly from Trump campaign Chairman Paul Manafort in the summer of 2016.
It was already known that Manafort had passed confidential internal polling data to Kiliminik, who was described by the 2020 Senate Select Intelligence Committee report as a “Russian intelligence officer.” While it is not a great leap to assume a Russian intelligence officer would pass material to his bosses, the recent announcement was the first time the U.S. government acknowledged Putin’s intelligence services were the recipient of the campaign data.
Those who were already troubled by the Trump campaign’s apparent collusion with the Kremlin, like myself, will see this as yet further proof of Trump’s intent to use illicit means to sway the 2016 election. Those who have long shouted “no proof of collusion” will likely scoff at the detail, labeling it as just another piece of information from the U.S. government with little public evidence to back it up.
Cat philosopher, by Olena Kamenetska-Ostapchuk
Read the whole thing if you’re interested. Sipher’s argument is that the Russians weren’t trying to change voters’ minds with their fake news propaganda and other active measures. What they hoped was that they could appeal to new voters who might support Trump and suppress those inclined to vote for Clinton. A bit more:
As aggressive as the covert Russian influence campaign was, it is hard to imagine that fake Russian articles, tweets, and advertisements could persuade a Democrat to vote for Trump. Some researchers have echoed this assumption. Looking at the 2016 election, political scientist and Dartmouth professor Brendan Nyhan concluded that it is extremely difficult to change the minds of committed Democrats and Republicans. His research on the 2016 election suggests that fake news on social media was more likely to reinforce existing biases rather than change any minds.
While this theory makes sense as far as it goes, this is not what the Russian government – or the Trump campaign – were doing. They were doing exactly the opposite. They wanted to reinforce existing biases, not change minds. They were not interested in appealing to voters to consider alternatives. As information warfare expert Molly McKew explained in a February, 2018 article in “Wired,” following the Mueller indictment of the Internet Research Agency (often called the “troll factory”).
Unfortunately, Trump is still trying to create chaos in U.S. politics. At the Atlantic, Peter Wehner, who apparently still things there could be hope for the GOP, warns: Trump Is Marching Down the Road to Political Violence. The Republican Party must counteract lies rather than indulge them.
At the beginning of last week, former President Donald Trump referred to the 2020 election as the “greatest Election Fraud in the history of our Country.” By the end of the week, he had issued a statement saying, “As our Country is being destroyed, both inside and out, the Presidential Election of 2020 will go down as THE CRIME OF THE CENTURY!”
What else is new? These are the ravings of a 74-year-old sociopath, isolated and banned from social media, living in Mar-a-Lago, where he is crashing wedding parties and delivering rambling monologues.
Karen Hollingsworth, Connected, 2010
Or at least, that would be the right way to look at things, if not for the fact that the GOP remains fully in Trump’s thrall, with its leadership more committed than ever to spreading his foundational lies and conspiracy theories. Under Trump’s sway, the Republican Party is becoming more fanatical, venturing even further into a world of illusion….
No former president, and certainly no president defeated after only one term, has so dominated his party after he left office. So Trump’s words matter. They mattered in the lead-up to, and on the day of, the deadly attack on the Capitol on January 6. They still matter. And if the Republican Party doesn’t counteract these lies rather than indulge them, political violence will become more acceptable and more prevalent on the American right.
This assessment isn’t based on mere speculation; we know that many of the people who participated in the violent assault on the Capitol believed that they were acting patriotically, foot soldiers in the 21-century version of the American Revolution, doing what they understood their leader was asking of them. As a Washington Post story put it, “The accounts of people who said they were inspired by the president to take part in the melee inside the Capitol vividly show the impact of Trump’s months-long attack on the integrity of the 2020 election and his exhortations to supporters to ‘fight’ the results.” The Post story points out that a video clip of rioters mobbing the Capitol steps caught one man screaming at a police officer: “We were invited here! We were invited by the president of the United States!”
Read the rest at The Atlantic.
We know that a number of Republican lawmakers not only sympathized with the Capital insurrection, but also that some actually participated in or knew of the the planning for it. Only a few have gone against the GOP flow. Here’s an interesting piece by Jim Acosta at CNN: Chief of staff for GOP lawmaker spoke to law enforcement after overhearing talk of storming FBI building on January 6.
A top aide to Republican Rep. Carlos Gimenez of Florida says he spoke with both the Capitol Police and the FBI on the morning of January 6 after overhearing a man in tactical gear talk about storming the FBI building just hours before the deadly insurrection.
Alex Ferro, chief of staff to the Florida GOP congressman, says he heard the comments as he and Gimenez were standing inside the lobby of the Hyatt Regency near Capitol Hill.
Tuxedo Cat Sleeping on Books, by Dawn Barnes
Gimenez, who was staying at the hotel as an incoming freshman lawmaker, alluded to the moment during an interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett Wednesday evening.
“I know for a fact that I saw people in my hotel room that were saying they were going to do something at 2 o’clock. And that happened at 9 o’clock in the morning,” Gimenez told CNN.
Ferro said Gimenez meant to say that the activity in question occurred in the lobby of the hotel, not his room. It was Ferro who initially picked up on the disturbing comments.
According to Ferro, the man who made the remark about storming the FBI did so “with passion in his voice.”
“It didn’t sit well with me,” Ferro added.
“I could have sworn I heard ‘we’re gonna storm the FBI building,'” Ferro continued.
![Tuxedo Cat Sleepin]g on Books, by Dawn Barnes](https://skydancingblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/tuxedo-cat-sleeping-on-books-by-dawn-barnes.jpg)
Gimenez voted with Democrats in a support of a January 6 Commission.
Trump cultists are still “recounting” 2020 presidential votes in Arizona, and now the insanity is spreading to other states.
Arizona Mirror: Wake Technology Services audited a Pennsylvania election as part of the #StopTheSteal movement.
The company that is conducting a hand recount of nearly 2.1 million Maricopa County ballots conducted an election audit in rural Pennsylvania county at the request of a state senator who has been a prominent advocate of the “Stop the Steal” movement that has spread baseless conspiracy theories that the 2020 presidential election was rigged against Donald Trump.
According to records and news coverage from Fulton County, Penn., state senators Doug Mastriano and Judy Ward asked county officials to allow Wake Technology Services Inc. to conduct an audit of the election. Ward, who represents the rural county in southern central Pennsylvania, told the Arizona Mirror that she passed the request on to county officials at Mastriano’s behalf.
Mastriano has been a prominent supporter of the “Stop the Steal” movement and Trump ally. He helped organize a Nov. 25 hearing in Gettysburg where Trump campaign lawyer Rudy Giuiani and others aired baseless conspiracy theories that Trump lost Pennsylvania through “irregularities and fraud.” He said on Wednesday Trump recently urged him to run for governor.
Wake TSI, an information technology company that has predominantly worked with clients in the health care sector, is now conducting a hand recount of all ballots cast in Maricopa County during the 2020 presidential election as part of an audit ordered by Arizona Senate President Karen Fann, R-Prescott. The company is part of an audit team led by Cyber Ninjas, a cybersecurity company located in Florida. Fann and Cyber Ninjas cited Wake TSI’s experience in Fulton County as a qualification to participate in the Maricopa County audit.
One more from The Washington Post: In echo of Arizona, Georgia state judge orders Fulton County to allow local voters to inspect mailed ballots cast last fall.
Friday Reads: Mugwump Edition
Posted: May 21, 2021 Filed under: morning reads | Tags: January 6 2021 was an Insurrection! 15 Comments
Good Day Sky Dancers!
It seems Republicans in the Beltway would rather not think about the Trumpist insurrection on January 6, 2021. We’ve been told it was just a typical tourist outing. We get told we should get beyond it and work on issues and stuff which basically means using Fox propaganda to talk down any policy but catering to crazy right-wing Christianists and white nationalists or tax-cutting for huge corporations and billionaires. We were also told it wasn’t Trumpists. All that adds up to telling us to not believe our lying eyes reinforced by repeated videos playing showing something quite different. Also, don’t believe the stories of Capitol Officers impaled on flagpoles bearing flags stating said impaler supports the police.
Why even the target of the lynch mob–then Vice President Mike Pence–couldn’t get respect from his brother yesterday. This is from Newsweek: “Greg Pence, Mike Pence’s Brother, Votes Against Jan. 6 Commission, Calls It ‘Cover-up for Failed Biden Admin’.” Yup, I don’t get that statement either.
The brother of former Vice President Mike Pence is defending his House vote against a commission to investigate the violent attack on the United State Capitol that forced his brother into a secured location, calling it a “cover-up for the failed Biden administration.”
“I was here with him, he never left his post,” U.S. Representative Greg Pence, a Republican from Indiana, told reporters at the Capitol on Thursday. “We impeached the president weeks, days later and now here we are having an investigation? Sounds a little bassackwards, right?”
The 1/6 Commission, modeled after the panel assigned to review the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, would review the lead-up to the attack, Capitol security, and future measures that should be taken to prevent another Capitol security issue.
Intelligence doesn’t seem to run in that family.
And so we’re still living the big lie in states targeted for illegal vote recounts. Arizona’s been the laughing stock of the country since the Cyber Ninjas arrived to destroy ballots and search for bamboo in ballots. The Cyber Ninjas are taking it to those states along with rallies by your favorite lie shouting fascist. And you thought he was only around fleecing the government for Secret Service shananigans still. States that he will not admit he lost will see the Disgraced Former Guy at rallies.
Meanwhile, the US Senate has taken up the call for a bi-partisan investigation into the January 6 insurrection. Here are two thought pieces on that.
Haley Byrd Wilt writing for Uphill at the Dispatch has this headline: “GOP Senators Dig In Against January 6 Commission, Many say they still haven’t read the legislation. But they have problems with it.”
Most Senate Republicans are opposed to the House’s proposed independent commission to look into the January 6 attack on the Capitol and the events leading up to it. They’re just not exactly sure why.
In interviews with more than 20 GOP senators on Thursday, Republicans raised fears about how the commission would work, how long it would last, and whether it would amount to a partisan circus. The answers to many of these questions are in the text of the relatively straightforward, 19-page bill passed by the House this week. When pressed on the gap between the details of the bill and their portrayal of it, some senators simply admitted they hadn’t read the legislation.
“If you’re going to turn a commission into a political partisan weapon, you know, use it to subpoena people to embarrass them, use it to want to make allegations that might prove useful in the 2022 elections, you’re actually contributing to the problem,” said Florida Sen. Marco Rubio—who initially expressed more openness to the commission in a conversation with The Dispatch on Monday night. “My general feeling is that if we can have a serious examination of the events leading up to, occurring, and in the aftermath of that day, we should do it,” Rubio said at the time, notably splitting with Republican leaders who called for the commission to also look into violence largely unrelated to January 6. He said Thursday he still hasn’t ruled out the possibility of supporting the commission, but he sounded a lot more skeptical.
“I’m worried about what it would do to our country to have a so-called independent commission that ultimately turns into a partisan political weapon that continues to exacerbate these tensions and divide people even more,” he said. “Because in a way, it sort of contributes to the very environment that made that day possible.”
Rubio’s concern that the commission will issue political subpoenas is addressed by the legislation: The commission would be evenly divided, with five members appointed by Democratic leaders and five appointed by Republican leaders. For Democrats to issue any subpoena, at least one of the five Republican members would have to agree to it. This was a key demand from GOP leaders—that their appointees would essentially have the power to veto subpoenas. That massive concession from Democrats hasn’t made much of an impression on Republican senators, though.
“Well, I’m still going through all the details of it,” Rubio said when The Dispatch pointed out how the commission would be structured and how subpoenas would be issued. “Honestly, we’ve got so much going on here. This is something the House just passed.”
“I haven’t even read it,” Rubio added. “I mean, it just came over. But just my overarching concern is I can already see the shadow of how this is going to be used for a political purpose, and I’m not interested in formalizing some partisan political weapon by either side.”
The bill text has been publicly available since last Friday. The two parties debated the contours of the commission for four months. It would take maybe a couple of minutes for a staffer to outline the important details for their boss—or just a few minutes longer for a lawmaker to actually read the legislation itself. There’s also, of course, a famous precedent that the bill can be compared with: The original September 11 commission legislation.
WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 06: A Capitol police officer looks out of a broken window as protesters gather on the U.S. Capitol Building on January 06, 2021 in Washington, DC. Pro-Trump protesters entered the U.S. Capitol building after mass demonstrations in the nation’s capital during a joint session Congress to ratify President-elect Joe Biden’s 306-232 Electoral College win over President Donald Trump. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
This lead to a look and a threat of Filibuster and Fillibuster reform. This is from Burgess Everett at Politico: “Filibuster brawl amps up with GOP opposition to Jan. 6 panel
The filibuster has been on hiatus since Joe Biden took over. Senate Republicans are about to change that — over a bipartisan commission to probe the Capitol riot.
After more than four months of letting their power to obstruct lie unused in the Senate, the 50-member Senate GOP is ready to mount a filibuster of House-passed legislation creating an independent cross-aisle panel to investigate the Jan. 6 insurrection. If Republicans follow through and block the bill, they will spark a long-building fight over the filibuster’s very existence.
The filibuster has spent months of lurking in the background of the Senate’s daily business, but the battle over the chamber’s 60-vote threshold will erupt as soon as next week. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is plotting to bring the House’s Jan. 6 commission bill to the floor and daring Senate Republicans to block it.
And GOP opposition is hardening by the day. According to interviews with more than a half-dozen Republicans on Thursday, there is almost no path to even opening up debate on the bill — much less passing it.
“I don’t think there will be 10 votes on our side for it,” said Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind). “At this stage, I’d be surprised if you’re gonna get even a handful.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has been circumspect about his use of the filibuster, leaving the tool untouched so far this Congress as his conference has advanced Democratic bills confronting hate crimes, planning water infrastructure and increasing American competitiveness. But the Jan. 6 commission — and talking about former President Donald Trump for months on end — is a bridge too far for the GOP.
So, an armed insurrection that threatened the lives of this new brand of mugwumps wasn’t a bridge too far for them. Say we had a 9/11 attack and nobody gave a damn enough to look into it?
So, there are a few former republicans around watching all of this with absolute fear and loathing. Michael Gerson is not a guy I usually quote but here we go.
The Washington Post: “Opinion: The threat of violence now infuses GOP politics. We should all be afraid.”
He’s obviously never defended a women’s clinic from right to lifer’s, or a Unitarian church, or had his kids stalked by them either. I’ve been subjected to this stuff since the 1980s when Pat Robertson and the like got all Republican on us. It’s been there for a long time. I remind you I was considered an apostate republican in 1992 for supporting Roe V Wade, the Equal Rights Amendment, and marching through streets with lesbians celebrating women’s suffrage. They’ve been at this for decades.
I still can’t believe what they’ve put Hillary Clinton through for decades. Over 30 freaking Benghazi hearings that find nothing and we can’t get an investigation into folks trying to start a Civil War over a total lie?
So, Former Guy!! This is another fine mess you’ve gotten us into! At least he can’t do this anymore. Via CNN: “Trump administration secretly obtained CNN reporter’s phone and email records — Washington (CNN)The Trump administration secretly sought and obtained the 2017 phone and email records of a CNN correspondent, the latest instance where federal prosecutors have taken aggressive steps targeting journalists in leak investigations.”
Wow, that’s a total disregard for the First Amendment. I have a feeling we’ll hear more about what kinds of things Barr and the former guy did strictly against the Constitution and law.
Meanwhile, we’re still standing. Have a good weekend! Be safe!
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