Wednesday
Aug242022
August 25, 2022
Afternoon Update:
Rebecca Beitsch of the Hill: "A federal magistrate judge on Thursday said he would release a redacted version of the affidavit that convinced him to approve a warrant to search former President Trump's Florida home. The decision from Judge Bruce Reinhart comes after he ordered the Justice Department to propose redactions to a document whose full release they argued would compromise their ongoing investigation.... 'I find that the Government has met its burden of showing a compelling reason/good cause to seal portions of the Affidavit,' Reinhardt wrote.... DOJ is ordered to file a public version of its redacted document by noon Friday." Update: CNN's report is here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: Fortunately, Reality Chex has readers with connections. Akhilleus already has obtained the redacted affidavit, which probably will be released to everyone else tomorrow. See the bottom of today's Comments. (You may be surprised to learn that "holy crap" and "crooked asshole" are legal terms.)
Adam Goldman & Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "Two Florida residents pleaded guilty in federal court in Manhattan on Thursday to stealing a diary and other belongings of President Biden's daughter, Ashley Biden, and selling them to the conservative group Project Veritas in the final weeks before the 2020 election. Aimee Harris, 40, and Robert Kurlander, 58, admitted they took part in a conspiracy to transport stolen materials from Florida, where Ms. Biden had been living, to New York, where Project Veritas has its headquarters. Prosecutors said Mr. Kurlander agreed as part of a plea deal to cooperate with the Justice Department's investigation into how the diary was acquired by Project Veritas, whose deceptive operations against liberal groups and traditional news organizations made it a favorite of ... Donald J. Trump.... Whether the Justice Department ultimately charges anyone who worked for Project Veritas is unclear." But an operative for Project Veritas, according to prosecutors, was involved in arranging the theft of some of Ms. Biden's belongings, and Project Veritas later demanded an interview with President Biden about the contents of the diary.
Glenn Thrush & Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "The Justice Department on Thursday proposed extensive redactions to the affidavit used to obtain a search warrant for ... Donald J. Trump's Florida residence in an effort to shield witnesses from intimidation or retribution if it is made public, officials said. The filing, sent to a federal judge in Florida a few minutes before a noon deadline, is unlikely to lead to the immediate release of the affidavit. In its most complete form, the document would disclose important, and potentially revelatory, details about the government's justification for taking the extraordinary step of searching Mar-a-Lago on Aug. 8. The submission by the Justice Department -- which contains proposed redactions and a supporting memo -- is a significant legal milepost in an investigation that has swiftly emerged as a major threat to Mr. Trump, whose lawyers have offered a confused and at times stumbling response. But it is also an inflection point for Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, who is trying to balance protecting the prosecutorial process by keeping secret details of the investigation, and providing enough information to defend his decision to request a search unlike any other in history."
John Hudson of the Washington Post: "Ukraine's largest nuclear power plant was cut off from the country's electricity grid, setting off a mass power outage in the adjacent area after fires damaged its last functioning transmission line, Ukraine's nuclear power company said Thursday. The incident renewed fears about safety at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP), which is also the largest atomic energy plant in Europe and is located in an area now occupied by invading Russian forces. Fighting in the vicinity of the plant has led to acute worries of a potential catastrophe and to calls from many world leaders for U.N. nuclear experts to be allowed to visit the site."
~~~~~~~~~~
Zolan Kanno-Youngs, et al., of the New York Times: "President Biden announced on Wednesday that he would cancel $10,000 in student loan debt for those earning less than $125,000 per year, with an additional $10,000 for those who had received Pell grants for low-income students, providing economic relief for tens of millions of Americans. The debt forgiveness, although less than the amount that some Democrats had been pushing for, comes after months of deliberations in the White House over fairness and fears that it could exacerbate inflation before the midterm elections. The plan will almost certainly face legal challenges, making the timing of any relief uncertain." CNN's report is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Ron Lieber & Tara Bernard of the New York Times outline who may qualify for loan forgiveness. ~~~
~~~ After reading about the college loan forgiveness program, columnist Alexandra Petri of the Washington Post seemed to find her inner Elderly Foxbot: "DISGUSTING! AWFUL! I have just received word that life is getting marginally better for some people, and I am white-hot with fury! This is the worst thing that could possibly happen! I did not suffer and strive and work my fingers to the bone so that anybody else could have a life that does not involve suffering and striving and the working of fingers to the bone. I demand to see only bones and no fingers!" ~~~
~~~ MEANWHILE, Petri's collegues on the Washington Post's editorial board oppose the student loan forgiveness program. MB: The NYT story linked above cites some of the perceived pros & cons, but President Biden perhaps best captured the key economic consideration in remarks he made Wednesday: "All of this means people can start finally to climb out from under that mountain of debt. To finally think about buying a home or starting a family or starting a business. And by the way, when this happens, the whole economy is better off." Some economists worry that freeing up money so that young people can buy stuff is inflationary. But for pete's sake, people buying stuff obviously is what drives the economy. And nobody needs stuff more than young people.
Matt Viser of the Washington Post: "President Biden on Wednesday announced that he had selected a new director for the U.S. Secret Service, an agency that has been under increasing scrutiny in recent months and faced a dramatic spotlight in the hearings of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Biden said in a statement that he had selected Kim Cheatle, who rose through the ranks during 27 years with the agency and served on his security detail when he was vice president. Cheatle, currently an official with PepsiCo, will become the agency's second female chief in its 157-year history.... The only other woman to head the Secret Service was Julia Pierson in 2013-2014, who resigned after security lapses eroded President Barack Obama's confidence in her." MB: So good luck with all that, Kim.
The IRS made it very clear that one of the "major duties" of these new positions is to 'be willing to use deadly force.'... The IRS is making it very clear that you not only need to be ready to audit and investigate your fellow hardworking Americans, your neighbors and friends, you need to be ready and, to use the IRS's words, willing, to kill them. -- Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), warning Americans why they should not take jobs with the IRS
... we WILL NOT FUND these 87k armed new IRS agents who will target the American people. -- Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) ~~~
Dana Milbank of the Washington Post: "Let's consider the lie, endlessly repeated by Republicans and the Fox News-led echo chamber, that new legislation enacted by Democrats funds the hiring of '87,000 armed IRS agents.'... This is a whole-cloth invention designed to stoke paranoia.... Treasury officials tell me, the expected increase in personnel would be more like 40,000, over the course of a decade -- which would merely restore IRS staffing to around the 117,000 it had in 1990. Only about 6,500 of the new hires would be 'agents.' The rest would be customer-service representatives, data specialists and the like. And fewer than 1 percent of the new hires would be armed.... Such officers, who go after drug rings and Russian oligarchs, have been part of the IRS for more than a century.... Treasury says the new law will result in a 'lower likelihood of audit' for ordinary taxpayers, because technology upgrades will enable the IRS to target the actual tax cheats -- the super-rich -- for more audits." Emphasis added. Milbank cites more incendiary nonsense from top Republicans who fantasize about IRS SWAT teams taking AR-15s to kids' lemonade stands. and so forth. Really. ~~~
~~~ Marie: The real danger here, of course, is that many "ordinary Republicans" will believe the lies Republicans & Fox "News" tell them, and some of these gullible, trigger-happy bozos will attack IRS agents. The GOP seems determined to establish a vast right-wing terrorist army. Again, I say, Democrats and other leaders need to speak out against these Republican "leaders" & call them out by name for the dangers they pose to ordinary low-level officials at every level of government.
Alan Feuer & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Less than four months after ... Donald J. Trump left office, the general counsel of the National Archives reached out to three lawyers who had worked with Mr. Trump to convey a firm message: The archives had determined that more than two dozen boxes of Mr. Trump's presidential records were missing, and it needed the lawyers' 'immediate assistance' to retrieve them, according to an email obtained by The New York Times. The email..., by the top lawyer at the archives, Gary M. Stern, was ... sent on May 6, 2021.... Mr. Stern noted that there were two sets of documents in particular the archives could not find: the original correspondence between Mr. Trump and the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, and a letter that President Barack Obama had left for Mr. Trump on his first day in office. Mr. Stern told the lawyers that just before Mr. Trump left office, the letters from Mr. Kim were placed in a binder for the president but never made their way to the archives, as required by the law.... Mr. Stern also said that 'roughly two dozen boxes of original presidential records' that Mr. Trump had kept in the White House residence during his final year in office had not been given to the archives. In his email, Mr. Stern said the archives never received the materials even though [White House counsel Pat] Cipollone had determined that they should have been turned over...." Emphasis added. ~~~
~~~ Josh Dawsey & Jacqueline Alemany of the Washington Post: "The email shows NARA officials were concerned about Trump keeping dozens of boxes of official records even before he left the White House -- concerns that only grew in the coming months as Trump repeatedly declined to return the records. It also showed that Trump's lawyers had concerns about Trump taking the documents and agreed that the boxes should be returned -- at least according to the top Archives officials -- while Trump kept the documents.... [NARA attorney Gary] Stern does not say in the email how he determined that the boxes were in Trump's possession.... Throughout the fall of 2021, Stern continued to urge multiple Trump advisers to help the Archives get the records back, according to people familiar with the conversations.... Trump only decided to give some of the documents back after Stern told Trump officials that the Archives would soon have to notify Congress, and Stern told Trump advisers that he did not want to escalate and notify Congress, these people said." Emphasis added.
How Secure Is Mar-a-Lago? Olivia Rubin & Will Steakin of ABC News: "Interviews with over a dozen visitors and a review of social media posts show that in weeks leading up to the [FBI search of Mar-a-Lago on August 8], dozens of events were held at the club, which together drew thousands of visitors from around the world to the president's property. And though a number of Trump's lawyers have taken to the airwaves in recent days to offer assurances that Mar-a-Lago is highly secure, others with experience at the property say otherwise.... Since Trump returned to Palm Beach after losing the 2020 election, Mar-a-Lago has emerged as the power center for Republican politics, with candidates flocking to the former president's resort to court his support and rent out the club for lavish fundraisers.... During his time in office, Trump held multiple summits at Mar-a-Lago with foreign leaders.... That trend has continued since Trump left office.... Experts say it would be a security risk to allow non-U.S. citizens access to where top-secret documents are stored.... [Former Homeland Security official John Cohen says that security] procedures [at the resort] are primarily for the purpose of eliminating threats to the former president -- not for protecting documents."
Wherein Trump Files a Brief Admitting He's a Thief. Hugo Lowell of the Guardian: "Donald Trump appeared to concede in his court filing surrounding the seizure of materials from his Florida resort that he unlawfully retained official government documents, as the former president argued that some of the documents collected by the FBI could be subject to executive privilege. The motion submitted on Monday by the former president's lawyers argued that a court should appoint a so-called special master to separate out and determine what materials the justice department can review as evidence due to privilege issues. But the argument from Trump that some of the documents are subject to executive privilege protections indicates that those documents are official records that he is not authorized to keep and should have turned over to the National Archives at the end of the administration." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: Several legal experts made the same point on TV yesterday. Andrew Weissmann further argued that there is no such thing as an "executive privilege" that would bar DOJ, FBI & National Archives personnel from viewing "executive" documents inasmuch as these agencies are all part of the executive branch of the government. That is, they share the "privilege."
Devlin Barrett of the Washington Post: "The Justice Department has released the entire text of a secret 2019 memo that played a crucial role in the decision not to charge or accuse ... Donald Trump of committing obstruction of justice in the investigation into whether Russia interfered in the 2016 election. The nine-page memo was the subject of a lawsuit by a government watchdog group, which argued the department had dishonestly kept the memo under wraps. A federal judge agreed, and an appeals panel last week upheld the judge's opinion and ordered the memo released. The memo was written by two senior Justice Department officials for then-attorney general William P. Barr, who subsequently told Congress there was not enough evidence to charge Trump with obstruction of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's inquiry. A redacted version was released last year, leaving the legal and factual analysis under seal. The newly-released analysis shows that Steven Engel, then the head of the Office of Legal Counsel, and Edward O'Callaghan, then a senior Justice Department official, concluded in the memo that Mueller did 'not identify sufficient evidence to prove any criminal offense beyond a reasonable doubt.'" Politico's story is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ The memo, via Politico, is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: The lede on these stories should have been: "The Department of Justice has released, under court order, a memo from two of Donald Trump's political appointees to attorney general William Barr, also a Trump appointee. The nine-page memo, which Barr's DOJ has long attempted to keep secret, provided Barr with tortured reasoning that gave him a shaky basis to falsely claim that special counsel Robert Mueller had not found sufficient evidence to charge Donald Trump with obstruction of justice in regard to Mueller's Russia investigation." ~~~
~~~ The New York Times story, by Mark Mazzetti & others is here: "Outside specialists in white-collar law greeted the disclosure of the memo with some skepticism, describing its tone as essentially that of a defense lawyer in a trial rather than an even-handed weighing of the law and evidence.... Ryan Goodman, a New York University law professor, called the memo a 'get out of jail free' card, adding: 'It's hard to stomach a memo that amounts to saying someone is not guilty of obstruction for deliberately trying to induce witnesses not to cooperate with law enforcement in a major criminal investigation.'... The memo shows that senior Justice Department officials seemed to be prepared to knock down arguments that Mr. Trump had obstructed justice. It is dated March 24, only two days after the special counsel's office delivered a report of more than 400 pages to the attorney general."
Danny Hakim & Richard Fausset of the New York Times explore Sen. Lindsey Graham's (R.-S.C.) November 13, 2020, call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger during the time Raffensperger was overseeing a hand recount of the Georgia presidential vote as well as Graham's attempt to get out of a subpoena from a special grand jury called by Fulton County DA Fani Willis to examine interference in the 2020 presidential election. ~~~
~~~ MEANWHILE. Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Rep. Scott Perry is suing to block the Justice Department from reviewing the contents of his cell phone, which was recently seized as part of an apparent investigation into the Pennsylvania Republican's connections to ... Donald Trump's effort to overturn the 2020 election. FBI agents seized Perry's phone on Aug. 9 and transported it to the custody of DOJ's inspector general, which has helped lead the inquiry into the push by Trump and his allies to replace department leadership as part of a broader drive to keep Trump in power. Investigators have cited Perry as a key participant in that effort given his help connecting Trump with Jeffrey Clark, a DOJ official whom Trump viewed as an ally in his push.... according to Perry, DOJ demanded that he waive his immunity under the Constitution's speech and debate clause as part of the process, which Perry says he declined.... A similar process has been unfolding in the case of attorney John Eastman, a key architect of Trump's 2020 election subversion." ~~~
~~~ Marie: The speech & debate clause of the Constitution provides that members of Congress "shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony, and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their attendance at the Session of their Respective Houses, and in going to and from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place." It appears that Perry & Graham are unaware of the meanings of speech and debate. (If only the Constitution had a glossary!) These terms certainly imply that members of Congress exercising their rights under the provision are opening their mouths, figurative or literally, and uttering words (not necessarily in complete sentences!) that the public can hear or read. One is not speechifying or debating if one is conveying no words at all. Therefore, IMO, the clause protects only public utterances. So there's a Catch-22 here. If Perry wants his utterances protected under the clause, he has to make them. If his "speech" is hidden on his phone, it is not protected. P.S. Somebody should tell Perry that an insurrection in which a mob storms the U.S. Capitol with the object of foreclosing any speech and debate -- by, among other means. killing potential speakers -- is also something of a "Breach of the Peace."
Maggie Astor of the New York Times: "Ryan Zinke, a former interior secretary during the Trump administration, intentionally misled investigators looking into his department's decision not to act on two Native American tribes' requests to open a new casino in Connecticut, the Interior Department's Office of Inspector General concluded in a report released on Wednesday. Mr. Zinke, who served as interior secretary from 2017 to 2019, is now the Republican nominee for a congressional seat in Montana. He is widely expected to win the general election this November. The 44-page report on Wednesday focused not on the casino decision itself -- litigation over that was resolved separately -- but on whether Mr. Zinke and his former chief of staff had been honest about it.... [The report] characterized Mr. Zinke and his chief of staff as not complying 'with their duty of candor when questioned.'"
Marie: For a long time I have thought that the GOP's threat to democracy was a secret known only to a few liberal wonks. But to my surprise & relief, an NBC poll released a couple of days ago tells us that has changed: ~~~
~~~ Zach Schonfeld of the Hill: "Threats to democracy clocked in as the most important issue facing the country for a plurality of registered voters, according to an NBC News poll. The poll found that 21 percent of respondents ranked threats to democracy as the most important issue, followed by 16 percent who indicated the cost of living and 14 percent who said jobs and the economy.... The new poll was conducted days after the FBI searched former President Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate earlier this month as part of its investigation into the former president's handling of classified documents."
Faiz Siddiqui & Elizabeth Dwoskin of the Washington Post: "Elon Musk's attorneys raised a new whistleblower complaint in arguments in court Wednesday, leaning heavily on the high-ranking former Twitter executive's allegations as they sought the right to additional data to support their case. Twitter has sued Musk over his attempt to back out of a $44 billion deal to buy the social media site, and Musk has countersued alleging fraud and breach of contract."(Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Mariana Alfaro & Amy Wang of the Washington Post: "First lady Jill Biden has tested positive for the coronavirus in a rebound case, the White House said Wednesday, and will resume isolation procedures. 'After testing negative on Tuesday, just now, the First Lady has tested positive for COVID-19 by antigen testing,' her spokeswoman, Kelsey Donohue, said in a statement. "This represents a "rebound" positivity.' Donohue added that Biden has not experienced a reemergence of symptoms and that the White House has traced and notified the first lady's close contacts. She is in Delaware and will remain there as she isolates." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Katherine Foley of Politico: "The Trump administration pressured the Food and Drug Administration, including former FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn, to authorize unproven treatments for Covid-19 and the first Covid-19 vaccines on an accelerated timeline, according to a report released Wednesday by Democrats on the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis.... In multiple instances, the subcommittee said it found evidence of senior Trump officials planning to take actions that could benefit the administration politically.... A substantial portion of the report focuses on Peter Navarro, a former trade adviser under Trump, who worked on the administration's coronavirus response ... [and his advisor] Steven Hatfill, an adjunct virology professor...." MB: It's probably worth your while to skim the story as a reminder of how Trump voters put our lives in the hands of scammers & screwballs.
Beyond the Beltway
California. Coral Davenport & Lisa Friedman of the New York Times: "California is expected to put into effect on Thursday its sweeping plan to prohibit the sale of new gasoline-powered cars by 2035, a groundbreaking move that could have major effects on the effort to fight climate change and accelerate a global transition toward electric vehicles.... The rule, issued by the California Air Resources Board, will require that 100 percent of all new cars sold in the state by 2035 be free of the fossil fuel emissions chiefly responsible for warming the planet, up from 12 percent today. It sets interim targets requiring that 35 percent of new passenger vehicles sold in the state by 2026 produce zero emissions. That would climb to 68 percent by 2030." A CNN story is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Idaho. Glenn Thrush of the New York Times: "A federal judge in Idaho blocked part of the state's strict abortion ban on Wednesday, delivering a limited but significant victory to the Biden administration, which has tried to use its limited power to protect reproductive rights since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June. This month, the Justice Department sued Idaho, one of the most conservative states in the country, arguing that the law would prevent emergency room doctors from performing abortions necessary to stabilize the health of women facing medical emergencies. Judge B. Lynn Winmill of the Federal District Court in Idaho wrote that doctors in the state could not be punished for acting to protect the health of endangered mothers, in a preliminary injunction issued a day before the ban was to be enacted. But he emphasized the narrow scope of the decision, leaving intact most of the bill's other provisions, which constitute a near-total prohibition on the procedure in the state as allowed under the Supreme Court's Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling in June." An NBC News story is here.
Texas. Chris Boyette & Tierney Sneed of CNN: "A federal judge in Texas has blocked Department of Health and Human Services guidance that medical providers who are required to provide emergency care to pregnant patients regardless of their ability to pay for it under a 1986 law must also provide abortion services in life-threatening or health-saving situations and will be protected if those actions violate state law. On Tuesday, US District Court Judge James Wesley Hendrix ruled that the guidance, which cites the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), was 'unauthorized.'" MB: Three guesses as to who appointed Hendrix to the court. Any answer that does not begin with a "T" and end with a "p" is "unauthorized."
Texas. Edgar Sandoval of the New York Times: "Facing intense pressure from parents, the school board in Uvalde, Texas, on Wednesday terminated its school police chief, Pete Arredondo, who directed the district's police response to a mass shooting at an elementary school in which the gunman was allowed to remain in a pair of classrooms for more than 75 minutes. The unanimous vote, which Mr. Arredondo, through his lawyer, called 'an unconstitutional public lynching,' represented the first direct accountability over what has been widely seen as a deeply flawed police response, one that left trapped and wounded students and teachers to wait for rescue as police officers delayed their entry into the two adjoining classrooms where the gunman was holed up." A Guardian story is here.
Way Beyond
Ukraine, et al.
The New York Times' live updates of developments Thursday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here. The Guardian's live updates for Thursday are here. The Guardian's summary report is here. ~~~
~~~ The Washington Post's live briefings for Thursday are here: "The death toll from Russian strikes on a train station and residential area in the Ukrainian village of Chaplyne rose to 25, including two children, as search and rescue operations concluded. A day after announcing almost $3 billion in additional military aid to Ukraine, President Biden is expected to have a telephone call with President Volodymyr Zelensky to reaffirm U.S. support. In Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron met with the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency to discuss the situation at Ukraine's Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant."
Emma Graham-Harrison of the Guardian: "A detailed plan has been drawn up by Russia to disconnect Europe's largest nuclear plant from Ukraine's power grid, risking a catastrophic failure of its cooling systems, the Guardian has been told. World leaders have called for the Zaporizhzhia site to be demilitarised after footage emerged of Russian army vehicles inside the plant, and have previously warned Russia against cutting it off from the Ukrainian grid and connecting it up to the Russian power network. But Petro Kotin, the head of Ukraine's atomic energy company, told the Guardian in an interview that Russian engineers had already drawn up a blueprint for a switch on the grounds of emergency planning should fighting sever remaining power connections. 'They presented [the plan] to [workers at] the plant, and the plant [workers] presented it to us. The precondition for this plan was heavy damage of all lines which connect Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant to the Ukrainian system,' Kotin said in an interview on Ukraine's independence day on Wednesday, with the country mostly locked down because of the threat of Russian attacks."
Somewhere off the Coast of Italy. Annabelle Timsit of the Washington Post: "A superyacht sank off the southern coast of Italy over the weekend in a spectacular capsizing captured on video and shared on Twitter by the Italian coast guard." MB: Gosh, I sure hope that's not the superyacht that nice Sen. Rick Scott was cruising on while complaining how terrible it was for Joe Biden to take a few vacation days in Delaware. Glub glub. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) Related story linked yesterday.
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Reader Comments (18)
Wait…you’d think that the prospect of 87,000 more people owning deadly weapons, maybe two or three Uzis or AR-15s each, a trunk full of handguns, and a cellar full of ammo along with the occasional RPG launcher would make the confederate ganglia twitch. More GUNZ!!
But no. Apparently that would be the “wrong people” owning guns. Kinda like if every BLM chapter in the country made it mandatory for all their members to walk around packing more heat than a character in “Call of Duty”. Man, oh man, then you’d see frantic calls for gun control right quick.
Can Joe Biden make it, like mandatory, that people getting part of their school debt forgiven go out and vote? Thank you very much.
@Akhilleus: You are not understanding Republicans. They hate government in general and they double-double hate any aspect of government they cannot control and from which they cannot personally benefit. In this respect, they are a bunch of Rand-Paul libertarians who want you to build your own damned roads if you think you have someplace to go & to pen your own Super Professional certificate for any job you might want (like eye surgeon) that requires some kind of expertise.
In fairness to Republicans who are trying to frighten their followers into executing public servants more inclined to carry calculators than guns, the Second Amendment does not protect the right of the government to carry weapons that might be used against the people; it -- according to the Supremes' latest rulings -- protects the right of the people to carry weapons that might be used against the government: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." (There is, BTW, a redaction clerk whose sole job at the Court is to black out language in any motions, briefs, correspondence or public reports that might reach the Supremes any reference whatsoever to that part that says "well regulated Militia.")
Here's a new word describing the likes of Ted Cruz and Rick Scott:
Ignoranus (n): A person who's both stupid and an asshole.
Also applies to ____________(fill in the blank).
Maybe the Biden student loan forgiveness is the equivalent of pulling out of Afghanistan. They are both very bad deals for the American people. As it turns out, the loans are bad for the students and their families, and for the government.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/01/federal-government-could-lose-197-billion-on-student-loans-watchdog.html
Tho' I've seen them before, can't find current numbers for the millions made by private investors in student loan funds (downright parasitic, I'd say) and I have always found it interesting that about half of the billions in loans out there are for "education" at "private" and I'd assume for-profit "schools."
The whole thing is a scam like Medicare Advantage programs, another way to tap the Federal Treasury for underserved profit.
Don't think it's the likes of Harvard that are saddling students with debt.
Undeserved, as in unearned, dammit!
@Ken Winkes: (1) According to the NYT story (Lieber & Bernard) linked above, "Private loans are not eligible." Students who got bank loans are out of luck if the Times is right. So your complaint that "parasitic private investors" will make millions doesn't seem to be the case, at least as far as I understand it (which, admittedly, ain't far).
(2) Think of the loan forgiveness as in some ways similar to food stamps & unemployment insurance. The money or vouchers from these programs go almost immediately from a government entity to a business. Recipients need the money and they spend it. I've read here & there that every unemployment dollar doubles in value because it goes into public circulation so quickly. This will likely be somewhat less true of student loan rebates, but as I wrote above, the people who get this student loan relief are the people who most need to buy stuff.
(3) In addition, many of the former students who receive the rebates have or would have defaulted on repayment of the loans anyway. So this is a way of maintaining the "good credit" of young people otherwise destined to to be saddled not just with excessive debt but with credit ratings that hamper their ability to fully participate in the economy.
(4) See Alexandra Petri, linked above.
Marie,
You got me there for my poor early morning writing.
Meant to say, the whole student loan situation, not the forgiveness, is the scam. That wasn't clear. It is private investors who are the parasites under the current system---which has coincidentally turned out to be a bad deal for the government.
Some old info on student loan private profiteers.
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/sep/06/us-student-debt-loans-navient-sallie-mae
As I said, can’t find good current information.
Marie,
It’s not just government that confederates want (need) to control, it’s everything and everyone. Especially those who are not already sieg heiling, totalitarian goose steppers.
For years, wingers have been attacking Democrats as supporters of a sort of nanny state. But in reality, it’s the Republican Party that is obsessed with oversight and control.
They now have control of healthcare for women (those uppity broads who think they can do what they want without permission), and just in case there are some renegade healthcare providers who think they can pull a fast one on their theocratic masters, red states are going full paranoia/fear/punishment on them, passing laws that make it a crime to treat women according to what’s best for their health instead of what’s best for the Savonarolas in charge.
Now that those people have been dealt with, they’re back to attacking education, because in right wing world, a mind is a terrible thing to educate. Critical thinking, command of knowledge and facts do nothing to aid the electoral bulldozing of the Party of Traitors.
So it’s back to banning books. And a lot more. In DeSantolini Land, teachers are now required to document everything they do, including maintaining detailed records of what they say in class, what books and websites they use, and what’s in all lesson plans for the entire year, in case DeSantolini’s Edumacation Monitors suspect that actual history, science, or any other impermissible topics are covered.
Teachers are afraid, students are confused. But that’s the goal. Instill fear and chaos. But, of course, all of this is being done “for the children”. A bullshit claim that the haters of education think insulates them from charges of political hit jobs on schools for the benefit of the right wing overlords and their voting bloc.
The real reason is that DeSantolini needs for the wingnut voters to see him as a guy who can and will out-Trump anyone coming down the pike. He’s not taking any guff from teachers or students.
It gets worse. But you knew that. Because if one of these clowns sez Stop! Five others will jump up and say Stop Stop Stop!! And another guy will scream Stop or we’ll shoot you!
Having teachers document their every word in a classroom isn’t good enough for the most demented among the Anti-education crowd. In Arizona, a former Fox “news” host gone full on Nazi, Kari Lake, a treason supporter so far around the bend she’s rapidly catching up to her own ass, is demanding that schools place cameras in classrooms so teachers can be monitored in real time.
This is nuts. No, it’s way beyond that. This is mustache twirling evil.
No so-called “nanny state” Democrats, in their wildest nightmares could ever have imagined this kind of complete oversight and control of the American people. But in R minds, this is the goal.
No one says or does or thinks anything they don’t approve of.
And this is the new reality. And if we allow it, it will get even worse.
Theocratic Jaw Dropper, no. 2,589
Ohhh-kaaay…
So now and then I listen to a podcast called “The New Abnormal” hosted in part by Molly Jong-Fast, a writer and left wing pundit. Very scary and often very funny.
The end of each show has what they call “This Week’s Fuck That Guy” segment. Molly’s Fuck That Guy choice in the podcast I heard yesterday was an incredibly stoopid, stoopid moron who is an actual elected official (meaning he makes laws) on the Salt Lake County Council, Dave Alvord. What a piece of work this guy is.
Responding to a posting by Kamala Harris, Dave (not a doctor or, obviously a woman, or a man who knows anything of the world beyond the end of his own dick), sniffed that Harris doesn’t know anything about how reproduction really works. Are you ready for this?
“‘The baby is not part of the body of a woman,’ Alvord responded in a tweet. ‘The umbilical cord and placenta do not directly connect to the woman. The baby floats inside the woman. It is not about the woman’s body, it’s to kill then remove the baby’s body.’”
I’m guessing this the sort of “science” DeSantolini and Kari Lake and their ilk will be insisting that students learn from now on. I gotta say, I never knew this. The baby is NOT connected to the woman’s body. Neither are the placenta or umbilical cord.
Wow! Who knew? And the best part? The baby “floats”.
This is classic Republican paternalistic white male biology of women. See, kids, this is why they need to be in charge and making the laws. They know shit no one else does.
But yeah…fuck that guy.
https://www.sltrib.com/news/2022/08/10/salt-lake-county-council-member/
@Akhilleus: Can't argue with all that. As you say, it isn't that Republicans object to the nanny state; they just want to make sure that the ninnies are the nannies.
@Akhilleus: When I was a child, I was of the definite impression -- on account of the cultural time in which I was reared -- that men were brilliant, that they knew everything and that it was only they who had the competence to be presidents and pilots and scientists and so forth.
I wonder how different my life would have been had someone introduced me to Molly Fuck-That-Guy's friend Dave.
I have spent an hour or more reading "How a Corporate Law Firm Led a Political Revolution"––The untold story of Jone's Day" (the infamous law firm) push to move the American government and court to the RIGHT. It's a riveting read that will knock your socks off unless, of course, you were aware of this law firm that operated as the signature operator of Trump's administration and orchestrated the filling of judge seats. In the end there were lawyers who hated what was happening and finally spoke up or/and left the firm but by then it was too late; the destruction had been sucessful and we are living with its aftermath.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/25/magazine/jones-day-trump.html
Oh, lookee see what Ronny D--Sandy Ass has to say about Fauci:
"“I’m just sick of seeing him! I know he says he’s going to retire. Someone needs to grab that little elf and chuck him across the Potomac,” DeSantis, a possible 2024 presidential candidate, said to cheers during a campaign stop on his “Keep Florida Free Tour.”
It's a sign of the times when a governor can besmirch someone like Dr. Fauci like that and people cheer and it's reported as though Ron had just said he wasn't sorry to see him leave.
Comment of P.D.'s report of DeSantis' remarks about Fauci.
Another Right Wing contradiction:
They like those Father Figures, oh, so much....until Daddy tells them what to do.
Then, like the spoiled kids they are, they wail, cry, and indulge in rhetorical (so far) patricide..
These guys are really F...ed up.
Enough
The other day Marie reiterated the importance and absolute necessity of calling out these freaks on the right who routinely threaten violence and call for the deaths of those they disagree with. Keeping quiet while these dangerous MAGA idiots threaten to murder people and lie with their every breath is no longer an option. And trying to make nice has never, and will never work. There can be no compromise with people like this.
The other day I saw a car with a large Jesus Loves You decal on the rear windshield. Two feet below that was a bumper sticker that said “It’s always open season on liberals” with a gun silhouette in the background.
Holy rollers go to church and shout “Let’s go Brandon!”, that is “Fuck Joe Biden” and giggle and slap each other in the back. “Praise Jesus and kill our enemies!” How do you compromise with that?
Someone who promises to execute a Merrick Garland for following the law has no business in any capacity as a public official. Of course, as always with these braying cowards, once they’re called on their promised atrocities, they whine “I was just kidding! Can’t you take a joke?”
No. I can’t. You know who jokes about murder? Psychopaths. And Republicans. But I repeat myself.
Then there’s the ongoing effort to take over school boards and ban books and control what kids read and what they learn and how they think. We’re in this situation because normal parents go to school board meetings and don’t want to have to deal with the fist pumping, gun waving screaming meemies who show up shouting about woke this and woke that and promising to bring out the guns if they don’t get their way.
This is how a small minority takes over. They threaten and cajole and bring out the guns. Proud Boys show up at local school board meetings threatening to beat up anyone who stands up to them. But they’re cowards too. We need to stand up to these thugs. We can’t let them ruin the lives of millions of kids and destroy the nation.
You know why confederates hate reading? Because it’s usually a very private act. They don’t know what a kid (or an adult, for that matter) reads on their own, and they hate it. They’re afraid of it. They can’t control it, so they do what assholes like Glen Youngkin does, attack the books and the authors themselves, as when he went after Toni Morrison.
And these threats pay off. Now I’m reading about a push to get Biden to give Trump a full pardon for everything. Because if he doesn’t, “it will tear the country apart”, or “think of all the violence if Trump is indicted”. But who is doing the tearing? Trump and his party. And who is threatening and encouraging violence? The same people
Enough of this shit. These people are bullies and cowards. They need to be put in their place every time they talk about “throwing someone across the Potomac” or executing people, or saying “Hitler had a lot of good ideas” or holding rallies for people who call Jews evil.
It’s almost too late, but not entirely. Call them out, and vote their filthy, treasonous asses out of office.
Extra! Extra! Read all about it!*
So a friend of mine in the DoJ, no names please, cuz these poor people are being targeted for death by Trump’s MAGA Myrmidons, but his name rhymes with Eric Harland. Shhhh…
Anyway, I have a copy of the redacted affidavit scheduled to be released on Friday. Psst…don’t tell anyone, but here it is…
“United States Department of Justice, after xxxxxxxxxx with xxxxxxxxx and xxxxxxxxx has found that Donald J. Trump, xxxxxxxxxx stolen documents, including xxxxxxxxx and, holy crap! xxxxxxxxxx and xxxxxxxxx and xxxxxxxx (don’t tell China!), xxxxxxxxx and xxxxxxxxxxx Espionage Act, and xxxxxxxxx, crooked asshole, xxxxxxxxx federal indictment xxxxxxxxx lock him up.
Signed,
(My pal Eric)”
Whachoothink?
*How many of those under 30 have a clue what this means? Just wondering.
The Who. Pinball Wizard.