Wednesday Reads

Posted: March 27, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: 2024 presidential Campaign, Donald Trump, Joe Biden | Tags: , , , , , | 16 Comments

Good Day!!

I hardly know where to begin these days. Every day I’m aware of the specter of Trump as dictator hanging over our heads. If only we could know what is going to happen. But we can’t. We can only hang in there until November to learn whether our country will remain a democracy or begin turning into a fascist state.

It seems so obvious that a man like Trump should not be permitted to run for any office, much less president. But somehow he’s doing it, and the media often treat him as a credible candidate. It’s mind-boggling to me. And we are learning that the courts and the “justice” system are not going to save us. Judges just keep giving Trump special treatment. And the Supreme Court is working to take away our individual rights and freedom. What will happen? We can’t know.

Francis_Scott_Key_Bridge_and_Cargo_Ship_Dali_NTSB_view

Collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge and cargo ship

Today’s top news story is about the terrible disaster in Baltimore–the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge. Here’s the latest from the CNN live blog: More than 24 hours after the Key Bridge collapse, recovery operations continue. Here’s what we know.

More than a day after the Dali cargo ship crashed into Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge, authorities are still searching for the six people missing in the crash. Cold water temperatures and choppy waters are affecting divers’ attempts to find the bodies of those missing, who are presumed dead.

Here’s the latest:

  • The investigation: A team from with the National Transportation Safety Board went aboard the ship late Tuesday night to gather evidence for their investigation, agency Chair Jennifer Homendy told CNN on Wednesday. There, they obtained the ship’s data recorder, or black box.
  • No timeline for channel reopening: There is no specific timeline for when ships may be able to move in and out of the channel into the Port of Baltimore, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore says, but he reiterated that it is a priority to get it reopened.
  • “Long road to recovery”: US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg predicted the restoration effort for the city and port won’t be quick. He also warned of supply chain disruptions, saying, “The impact of this incident is going to be felt throughout the region and really throughout our supply chains.”
  • Coast Guard assessing hazmat threat: The US Coast Guard is examining damaged shipping containers, some containing potentially hazardous materials, from the crashed vessel, according to a US government document obtained by CNN and a US official familiar with the matter.
  • Overnight search deemed unsafe: Search and recovery operations were halted overnight due to dangerous conditions, including “very unstable” sections of the steel bridge and shipping containers hanging from the cargo ship, Baltimore City Fire Chief James Wallace told CNN.
  • Details emerge on those missing: Local authorities have yet to confirm the identities of those missing but have said they include construction workers who were on the bridge at the time of the collapse. Here’s what we know about the six people presumed dead.
  • Ship blacked out before crash: Just minutes before impact, there was a “total blackout” of engine and electrical power on the ship, according to Clay Diamond, executive director of the American Pilots Association.
  • City remains in state of emergency: As the search operations continue for the missing, Baltimore remains in a state of emergency, Mayor Brandon Scott told CNN. He says he expects it to remain in place for the “foreseeable future.”

Read more of the key details about the crash here.

Yahoo News: NTSB recovers ship’s ‘black box,’ 6 presumed dead after Francis Scott Key Bridge collapses in Baltimore: Here’s what we know.

The National Transportation Safety Board chair told CNN Wednesday morning that the cargo ship’s data recorder, or black box, was recovered by investigators overnight after they were able to board the ship. More information will reportedly be shared with the public today….

Shortly before 1:30 a.m. on Tuesday, the Dali, a massive cargo ship under a Singaporean flag that was bound from Baltimore to Sri Lanka, apparently lost power shortly before crashing into a pillar that helped stabilize the 1.6-mile-long bridge. The crew sent out a Mayday signal that allowed officials to stop traffic before more cars entered the bridge.

“We’re thankful that between the Mayday and collapse that we had officials who were able to begin to stop the flow of traffic so more cars were not up on the bridge,” Gov. Wes Moore said at a news conference Tuesday.

Emergency personnel work at the scene of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore

A view of the Dali cargo vessel which crashed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge causing it to collapse in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S., March 26, 2024. REUTERS/Julia Nikhinson

The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore said in a statement that the ship, which is as long as three football fields, lost propulsion prior to the crash, and followed emergency protocols by dropping anchor. The National Transportation Safety Board said it was investigating those claims.

The loss of power, however, came as the Dali was traveling at a speed of 8 knots, roughly 9 mph, and left the ship “unable to maintain the desired heading,” the statement read.

“What I do know is that the force of this ship is almost unimaginable,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told ABC’s Good Morning America. “This is a vessel that was about 100,000 tons carrying its load. So 200 million pounds went into this bridge all at once, which is why you had that almost-instant catastrophic result.”

Roberto Leon, a Virginia Tech engineering professor, told the Associated Press that the bridge could not “absorb anywhere near the energy that this humongous ship is bringing. So it’s going to break.”

The Dali was also involved in a 2016 crash at a Belgium port, according to Business Insider.

Thanks to JJ for sending this Guardian article on the victims of the bridge collapse: Details emerge on likely Baltimore bridge collapse victims: ‘They were wonderful family people.’

The six likely victims of the Baltimore bridge collapse on Tuesday all appeared to be construction workers from Latin American countries, according to reports, including a father of three, Miguel Luna, from El Salvador, as authorities said they had recovered the black box recorder from the ship.

Since the container ship Dali crashed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge after losing power early on Tuesday morning, six members of a construction crew filling potholes on the major bridge are now presumed to be dead, according to state officials.

The immigrant services non-profit We Are Casa confirmed that Luna, 49, had lived in Maryland for at least 19 years.

“He is a husband, a father of three, and has called Maryland his home for over 19 years,” its executive director, Gustavo Torres, said in a statement. Luna’s son Marvin told the Washington Post he knew his father was on the bridge but he had not heard of the tragedy until friends called him.

The foreign affairs ministry of Guatemala confirmed that two of the workers were nationals, though it did not name them. It said the Guatemalan consul general had spoken with family members.

The Associated Press also reported one of the men, Maynor Yassir Suazo Sandoval, was from Honduras.

A correspondent for Reforma reported that a Mexican embassy spokesperson in Washington said one of the victims was a Mexican national and that two others were from Guatemala and El Salvador.

Jesús Campos, a construction worker, said he knew the missing crew members and that they were all from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Mexico. “It’s a difficult situation,” he said, speaking through a translator. “My friends were working on that bridge.”

Campos said the men all worked for the construction company, Brawner Builders, where he himself had worked for eight months – including on the overnight shift, until he was transferred to daytime hours one month ago.

He said the workers were low-income immigrants who used their wages to support family members in the US and abroad.

All “low-income immigrants” repairing potholes in the middle of the night. Heartbreaking.

In other news, NBC was forced by in-house and public outrage to fire Ronna McDaniel after only a few days of employment.

Jeremy Barr at The Washington Post: NBC reverses decision to hire Ronna McDaniel after on-air backlash.

Amid a chorus of on-air protest from some of the network’s biggest stars, NBC announced Tuesday night that former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel will no longer be joining the network as a paid contributor.

In a memo, NBCUniversal News Group Chairman Cesar Conde told staff that he had listened to “the legitimate concerns” of many network employees. “No organization, particularly a newsroom, can succeed unless it is cohesive and aligned,” he wrote. “Over the last few days, it has become clear that this appointment undermines that goal.”

Ronna McDaniel

Ronna McDaniel

The network had only just announced four days earlier that they were bringing McDaniel on board to provide “expert insight and analysis” on politics. “It couldn’t be a more important moment to have a voice like Ronna’s on the team,” one NBC News executive told staff at the time.

But the company’s on-air personalities — especially those on NBC’s liberal-leaning cable affiliate MSNBC — disagreed vehemently, saying that McDaniel’s promotion of former president Donald Trump’s media-bashing and false election-fraud claims disqualified her from a role in their news divisions.

And one by one, they took to the airwaves to deliver that message to their bosses in front of their live audiences Monday.

“Take a minute, acknowledge that maybe it wasn’t the right call,” MSNBC’s top-rated star Rachel Maddow said on her show that night. “It is a sign of strength, not weakness, to acknowledge when you are wrong.”

NBC delivered the news of its course correction to its employees before informing McDaniel, according to a person familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preserve confidence.

Maybe the bosses should have consulted with their employees before hiring a proven liar and insurrectionist.

Jim Rutenberg and Alexandra Berzon at The New York Times: How Ronna McDaniel Backed Trump’s Early Bid to Hold Power.

By the second week of December 2020, the presidential election was decided and heading to a formal vote at the Electoral College. Like President Trump, the Republican Party chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel, wasn’t ready to concede.

“Every illegal vote is stealing from a valid vote, and every state that conducted their election fraudulently is stealing from states that conducted their elections fairly,” Ms. McDaniel told Sean Hannity of Fox News on Dec. 8.

At the time, key campaign aides had already told Mr. Trump that he had lost. Advisers had found no credible evidence of fraud or irregularities that could have reversed the outcome. The Electoral College would confirm Joseph R. Biden was the winner six days later.

Yet, Ms. McDaniel’s appearance on Mr. Hannity’s program was part of her concerted efforts to help Mr. Trump dispute his election loss….

Ms. McDaniel had recently tried to downplay her role. But a review of her record shows she was, at times, closely involved in and supportive of Mr. Trump’s legal and political maneuvering ahead of the violent attempt to block Congress from certifying Mr. Biden’s victory on Jan. 6.

Ms. McDaniel was not the most aggressive or outlandish member of Mr. Trump’s team. Indeed, she fell short of Mr. Trump’s demands and expectations, former aides said, and faced calls from his allies and grass-roots activists to be far more aggressive. And her involvement appears to have fallen off substantially — at least publicly — in the days before Jan. 6, when the R.N.C. focused its efforts on the then-upcoming Senate runoff election in Georgia.

Later, after courts, Republican election officials and state investigations all dismissed Mr. Trump’s claims of fraud, Ms. McDaniel was viewed as insufficiently dedicated to the cause of overturning the election, particularly by the Trump supporters who still considered Mr. Trump the rightful winner.

But before then, Ms. McDaniel, who through intermediaries declined to comment for this article, had done more to dispute a legitimate election result than any other chair of a major American political party in modern history.

Ronna and Trump

Ronna McDaniel with Trump

The authors break down McDaniel’s actions in detail. Some examples:

The party set up hotlines, collected accounts of supposed suspicious activities and held meetings at the White House with Mr. Trump’s legal team, Ms. McDaniel later testified to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

At a news conference in Michigan on Nov. 6, the day before news outlets declared Mr. Biden the winner, she announced that the R.N.C. was deploying legal teams in four states to investigate “irregularities.” She listed allegations in Michigan that she claimed were evidence of potential, widespread problems, including supposedly suspect election machine software. The allegations were disputed by election officials and later debunked.

Speaking on Fox on Nov. 10, Ms. McDaniel repeated unsubstantiated and soon-to-be debunked claims of “deceased voters” and “batches of votes that were invalidated,” declaring, “that is stealing.”

And on social media, Ms. McDaniel questioned “irregularities” about the election, posted fund-raising solicitations and promoted hearings in states where Mr. Trump’s allies presented bogus evidence of election malfeasance. She vowed that the R.N.C. would “pursue this process to the very end.”

After Mr. Trump switched his legal team, bringing in outside lawyers led by Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, the R.N.C. also shifted away from the legal involvement with the Trump team. Of the 65 lawsuits that Mr. Trump and his allies filed after the 2020 election, the R.N.C. attached its name only to four, according to Democracy Docket, which tracks the cases.

Still, on Nov. 19, Ms. McDaniel allowed Mr. Giuliani and Ms. Powell to hold a press briefing at R.N.C. headquarters. With dark liquid dripping down his face, Mr. Giuliani promoted wild theories about Dominion voting machines and the deceased Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez….

After that news conference, party lawyers told Ms. McDaniel not to repeat the conspiracy theories about election machines, and urged R.N.C. aides to be careful when speaking about the election, suggesting they use phrases like “voting irregularities” rather than “voter fraud,” according to House committee testimony….

On Nov. 17, two Republican members of the canvassing board in Wayne County, which includes Detroit, initially voted against certifying the county’s results, deadlocking the board until they reversed themselves amid angry protest.

Immediately afterward, the Republican board members, Monica Palmer and William Hartmann, received a phone call from Mr. Trump; Ms. McDaniel was also on the line.

Believe it or not, there are many more examples of McDaniel’s dishonest actions in the NYT story.

Trump has now taken over the Republican National Committee and is hiring staff who will support his big lie without question. Josh Dawsey at The Washington Post: Was the 2020 election stolen? Job interviews at RNC take an unusual turn.

Those seeking employment at the Republican National Committee after a Trump-backed purge of the committee this month have been asked in job interviews if they believe the 2020 election was stolen, according to people familiar with the interviews, making the false claim a litmus test of sorts for hiring.

In recent days, Trump advisers have quizzed multiple employees who had worked in key 2024 states about their views on the last presidential election, according to people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private interviews and discussions. The interviews have been conducted mostly virtually, as the prospective future employees are based in key swing states.

“Was the 2020 election stolen?” one prospective employee recalled being asked in a room with two top Trump advisers.

The question about the 2020 election has startled some of the potential employees, who viewed it as questioning their loyalty to Trump and as an unusual job interview question, according to the people familiar with the interviews. A group of senior Trump advisers have been in the RNC building in recent days conducting the interviews.

“But if you say the election wasn’t stolen, do you really think you’re going to get hired?” one former RNC employee asked.

Read more about the Trump RNC hiring process at the link.

More Trump news:

AP: Judge issues gag order barring Donald Trump from commenting on witnesses, others in hush money case.

A New York judge Tuesday issued a gag order barring Donald Trump from commenting publicly about witnesses, prosecutors, court staff and jurors in his upcoming hush-money criminal trial, citing the former president’s history of “threatening, inflammatory, denigrating” remarks about people involved in his legal cases.

Judge Merchan

Judge Juan Merchan

Judge Juan M. Merchan’s decision, echoing a gag order in Trump’s Washington, D.C., election interference criminal case, came a day after he rejected the defense’s push to delay the Manhattan trial until summer and ordered it to begin April 15. If the date holds, it will be the first criminal trial of a former president.

“Given that the eve of trial is upon us, it is without question that the imminency of the risk of harm is now paramount,” Merchan wrote in a four-page decision granting the prosecution’s request for what it deemed a “narrowly tailored” gag order.

The judge said the presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s statements have induced fear and necessitated added security measures to protect his targets and investigate threats.

Trump’s lawyers fought a gag order, warning it would amount to unconstitutional and unlawful prior restraint on his free speech rights. Merchan, who had long resisted imposing a gag order, said his obligation to ensuring the integrity of the trial outweighed First Amendment concerns.

You’ve probably heard that Trump has been hawking $60 Bibles. It turns out that he’s actually just endorsing a Bible that singer Lee Greenwood has been selling for years. But Trump must be getting a cut of the profits. I can’t imagine him doing this for nothing.

Margaret Hartmann at New York Magazine: Trump Sells $59.99 Bible That Isn’t Even Gold.

It turns out Donald Trump’s Monday morning Truth Social post comparing himself to Jesus Christ (once again) wasn’t just inherently sacrilegious; in a way, it was also promotional content.

Trump launched a new career as a Bible salesman on Tuesday afternoon, posting a video to Truth Social in which he urged supporters to buy the “God Bless the USA Bible.”

Trump with Lee Greenwood

Trump with Lee Greenwood

“I’m proud to endorse and encourage you to get this Bible,” Trump says in the three-minute ad. “We must Make America Pray Again.”

Trump added: “All Americans need a Bible in their home and I have many. It’s my favorite book. It’s a lot of people’s favorite book.”

Many people find the idea of any presidential candidate selling religious texts to their supporters totally appalling. And the Donald Trump of it all makes matters even worse. The former president famously named the Bible as his favorite book on the 2016 campaign trail, but was unable to name his favorite verse. During his administration he cited “Two Corinthians” (not Second Corinthians) and had peaceful protesters forcibly removed from a park near the White House so he could stand in front of a church and brandish a Bible. Plus, Trump is hawking the Good Book as he finds himself in huge financial trouble due to his multiple criminal trials, one of which involves hush-money payments to a porn star.

These are all valid concerns. But as a connoisseur of ridiculous Trump money-making schemes, my main issue is that this isn’t a clever scam or an original product: He’s just endorsing a Bible the singer Lee Greenwood released about three years ago.

The Lee Greenwood Bible was controversial even before it came out, as Slate explained back in 2021:

The $60 Bible, which was originally set to ship early this month to commemorate the 20th anniversary of 9/11, was “inspired by” the country musician Lee Greenwood’s 1980s patriotic anthem “God Bless the USA” and packages Scripture with the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, the Pledge of Allegiance, and the handwritten chorus to Greenwood’s song. The ensuing uproar shows the challenges facing publishers in the lucrative Bible-printing business and the growing discomfort with Christian nationalism, the ideology that asserts the United States should be an explicitly Christian country.

The only difference the the Bible Trump is selling is that there is a note in the FAQ saying that Donald Trump has endorsed the book.

AP: Trump slow to invest in states that could decide election as some in GOP fear ‘skeleton’ campaign.

In his bid to retake the White House, few states hold as much promise for Donald Trump as Michigan.

The former president has already won the state once and President Joe Biden, who reclaimed it for Democrats in 2020, is confronting vulnerabilities there as he seeks reelection. Trump’s campaign promises an aggressive play for Michigan as part of a robust swing-state strategy.

But, at least for now, those promises appear to be mostly talk. The Trump campaign and its partners at the Republican National Committee haven’t yet made significant general election investments in the state, according to Michigan Republican Party Chairman Pete Hoekstra. The national committee, he said, hasn’t transferred any money to the state party to help bolster its operations heading into the general election. There are no specific programs in place to court voters of color. And there’s no general election field staff in place.

“We’ve got the skeleton right now,” Hoekstra said. “We’re going to have to put more meat on it.”

It’s much the same in presidential battleground states across the country, according to Republican operatives and party officials involved in campaign planning elsewhere.

Widely praised for its professionalism and effectiveness throughout the primary phase of the 2024 election, Trump’s political operation has been slow to pivot toward the general election in the weeks after executing a hostile takeover of the Republican Party’s national political machinery. In fact, the former president’s team has rolled back plans under previous leaders to add hundreds of staff and dozens of new minority-outreach centers in key states without offering a clear alternative.

Read the rest at the AP.

At The Daily Beast, Jake Lahut writes about Joe Biden’s developing plans for Trump: The Biden Campaign Is Quietly Preparing a Trump Ambush.

The president began the election year with his approval rating at historic lows. He was trailing Donald Trump in almost all of the key battleground states, as well as in national polling averages. Influential liberals were so concerned that the octogenarian incumbent did not have another campaign in him that some were openly calling for him to be replaced as the nominee.

Kamala+Harris+and+Joe+Biden_heroAs the general election kicks off this spring, however, those calls have quieted—because Biden’s resurgence is coming into focus. While the president still faces serious obstacles to a second term, several important data points are lining up to demonstrate he is picking up badly needed momentum.

For the first time in a long time, there’s good news for Biden on the polling front. Gradual improvements in the battleground states along with an uptick in his approval rating led one Democratic strategist, Simon Rosenberg, to declare “the Biden bump.”

The boost is at the very least correlated with Biden’s fiery State of the Union address on March 7, when he repeatedly went after his “predecessor” and made sure to mix it up with Republicans in the chamber on a few occasions.

Since then, Biden’s team has continued the punchy, combative tone on display that night, using press releases to cheekily slam their legally challenged opponent as “Broke Don.”

On top of that, the Biden campaign has continued to flex what has always been its core strength: fundraising.

With a $53 million haul in February, the Biden campaign built on their already impressive financial advantage over Trump, who brought in only $20 million over the same period. The Biden campaign has $71 million in cash on hand, compared to just $33.5 million for Trump.

The tide is turning, a Biden adviser argued to The Daily Beast, and although they aren’t putting too much stock into any recent polling upticks, the president’s team is ready to seize upon April and May as a crucial time to ambush a wounded Trump campaign.

I really like the way Biden’s campaign has been making fun of Trump on social media. One of the things Trump fears most is people laughing at him.

I know I should be writing about the Supreme Court today, but it’s just too painful. I do want to recommend an excellent article by Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern at Slate (h/t Daknikat): The Current Attack on Abortion Pills Will Fail. The Next One Will Be So Much Worse.

Another good article to check out is this interview with former Justice Stephen Breyer at Politico Magazine: A Supreme Court Justice Sounds a Warning. In Breyer’s new book, he writes that his former colleagues are in danger of having “a Constitution no one wants.”

What are your thoughts on all this? What other stories are you following?