May 15, 2022

Ellie Silverman & Kyle Swenson of the Washington Post: "Protesters gathered in Washington and at hundreds of events across the country on Saturday, including in New York City, San Antonio and Los Angeles, to rally for abortion rights.... The liberal groups that organized Saturday's protests designed the events as a resounding message to leaders that the majority of Americans support upholding Roe. In Washington, generations -- from babies and children to mothers and grandmothers who say they've been protesting for the right to an abortion for far too long -- gathered on the National Mall to send it. They voiced anger over the wave of abortion bans and restrictions taking hold in states across the country." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) An AP report is here.

Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times takes on the Washington Post editors: "Having captured the court for their own ends, conservative legal elites have not been shy about their efforts to pressure the court to rule in their favor. Which is to say that in evaluating the recent protests, we have one important question to answer: Who has the right to speak directly to the Supreme Court? The elites who shape the court or the people who must live under it?" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Maureen Dowd of the New York Times: "There is an astonishing preponderance of Catholics on the Supreme Court -- six out of the nine justices, and a seventh, Neil Gorsuch, was raised as a Catholic and went to the same Jesuit boys' high school in a Maryland suburb that Brett Kavanaugh ... did, Georgetown Prep.... This Catholic feels an intense disquiet that Catholic doctrine may be shaping (or misshaping) the freedom and the future of millions of women, and men. There is a corona of religious fervor around the court, a churchly ethos that threatens to turn our whole country upside down.... Last year, at Thomas Aquinas College in California, Justice Samuel Alito fretted that there was growing cultural hostility toward Christianity and Catholicism. 'There is a real movement to suppress the expression of anything that opposes the secular orthodoxy,' he said. During her Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Amy Coney Barrett tried to reassure Democrats who were leery of her role as a 'handmaid' in a Christian group.... The group has a male-dominated hierarchy and a rigid view of sexuality reflecting conservative gender norms and rejecting openly gay men and women. Men, the group's decision makers, 'headed' their wives." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

The New York Times' live updates of developments Saturday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here: "Foreign ministers from NATO countries were set to finish a weekend of meetings in Berlin on Sunday, with their counterparts from Finland and Sweden present, amid vague Russian threats of retaliation over the suddenly very real prospect of the two Nordic countries joining the military alliance. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken arrived in Berlin on Saturday night for the talks, the latest example of how repercussions from Russia's invasion of Ukraine have undermined ... Vladimir V. Putin's war aims.... On the battlefields, Ukrainian forces reclaimed territory in the country's northeast on Saturday, driving Russian forces away from the city of Kharkiv and going on the offensive near the occupied town of Izium. Despite those gains, military and civilian leaders warned that the war was entering a new, slow-moving phase that could last a long time.... Turkey is working to negotiate a safe exit for the wounded Ukrainian soldiers sheltering in the bunkers of the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol. The situation there is growing more dire, with the remaining fighters surviving on dwindling rations." ~~~

     ~~~ Here's a New York Times summary of what happened Saturday.

The Washington Post's live updates of developments Sunday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here: "The UK's Ministry of Defense says Russia now looks to have suffered losses to a third of the ground combat force it committed in February, with the loss of equipment and low morale meaning it is unlikely to accelerate its rate of advance in the next month.

Emily Cochrane of the New York Times: "Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, visited Ukraine on Saturday to meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky, leading the latest delegation of American lawmakers to the country as the United States deepens its commitment to Kyiv's fight against the Russian invasion. The surprise visit by Mr. McConnell, who was accompanied by three other Republican senators, comes as the Senate is working to pass a $40 billion emergency military and humanitarian aid package for Ukraine.... The trip, a rare international visit for Mr. McConnell, highlights the widespread bipartisan support for Ukraine in Washington...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Paul Kane of the Washington Post: Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) "is the only member of the House to hold a perfect 16-for-16 record opposing legislation to support Ukraine and oppose Russia, according to House records and a Democratic analysis provided to The Washington Post.... Little by little, however, with each proposal [to aid Ukraine], a few more Republicans would sign up [to oppose the legislation & resolutions]: eight Republicans opposed suspending trade privileges for Russia in mid-March; 17 Republicans opposed a resolution supporting Moldova, whose leaders fear their Ukraine-bordering nation could be Putin's next target; 19 opposed a similar resolution in support for Georgia.... [Massie's] views remain a minority, but his allies in this cause include some of the closest allies to Trump, who ... has espoused his own fondness for Putin." On Monday Trump, who once called him a 'third-rate grandstander,' endorsed Massie in the GOP primary." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Elisabetta Povoledo, et al., of the New York Times: "The Ukrainian rap and folk band Kalush Orchestra won the Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday, as European viewers and juries delivered a symbolic, pop culture endorsement of solidarity behind Ukraine in its defense against Russia's invasion."

Ron Lieber of the New York Times: We should stop talking about "student loan forgiveness" and apologize to the kids we've told to get a higher education, then saddled them with huge debt. "Among the 26 nations that the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development survey, only Britain has higher average tuition for public universities than the United States." Read on. MB: Lieber does an excellent job of shaming everybody from Joe Biden on down, but here's one thing he doesn't mention: banks aggressively pitch students to take out loans. I went back to get an advanced degree in the 1990s. I did not apply for a loan of any kind, as my tuition was free and I had a roof over my head. Nevertheless, the university obviously sold my name and address to banks because I received at least half-a-dozen letters from banks telling me they would send money. It's no wonder; lending money to students under government loan programs is a sure deal for banks because the government guarantees the loans.

Rachel Weiner of the Washington Post: Two 4th District Court of Appeals judges appointed by Donald Trump on a three-judge panel ruled that undocumented immigrants have fewer rights than American citizens. "An appeal to the full bench of 4th Circuit judges is likely.... Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg of the Legal Aid Justice Center, an immigrant rights group that filed a brief in favor of the detainees, called the decision 'a radical outlier' from other appellate courts.... 'The Biden Administration should not continue to press legal arguments that immigrants are somehow lesser 'persons' than U.S. citizens within the meaning of the Due Process Clause.'"

If you'd like to know more about Elon Musk, Marc Fisher and others wrote a long profile of the nasty bastard for the Washington Post.

Felix Salmon, now of Axios: "Elon Musk has agreed to pay $44 billion for Twitter, which is much more than it's worth. His actions indicate that he doesn't want to pay that much -- he still wants the company, just not at that price. So the big question in the markets is: Will he end up buying the company, and, if so, how much will he end up paying?" Salmon goes on to explain Musk's contractual obligations to Twitter and a few ways the contretemps might play out.

Beyond the Beltway

Pennsylvania Gubernatorial race. Zach Montellaro, et al., of Politico: "Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano on Saturday landed the coveted endorsement of ... Donald Trump with days to go before the gubernatorial primary. The prospect of Trump's endorsement of Mastriano, a leading voice in the movement to overturn the 2020 election results and who was present at the Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection, had alarmed local and national Republicans concerned about his ability to win a general election.... Mastriano -- who also has ties to the QAnon conspiracy theory -- was already leading in the polls in the fractured primary, despite being well outspent on TV by candidates like former U.S. Attorney Bill McSwain and businessman David White.... Trump had been skeptical of Mastriano, according to another person familiar, but was impressed by his lead in the polls and focus on the 2020 election." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Way Beyond

U.A.E. Ben Hubbard of the New York Times: "Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan became the president of the United Arab Emirates on Saturday, formalizing the rise of a 61-year-old prince who has deftly wielded his country's oil wealth to become one of the most influential leaders in the Arab world and a close partner of the United States."

U.K. When Boris Was a Boy. David Segal of the New York Times: "Simon Kuper has written a book that captures Boris Johnson and other future Conservative politicians when they were ambitious and misbehaving [Oxford] undergrads, planning their rise to power.... The book profiles a group of future leaders at a moment when few outside elite circles knew their names, and it taxonomizes Oxford the way a nature documentary might explain predators and prey on the Serengeti Plain."

News Ledes

New York Times: "A gunman who opened fire inside a Southern California church on Sunday, killing one person and critically wounding four others, was overpowered by congregants who then hogtied him, preventing further bloodshed, the authorities said. The shooting occurred at 1:26 p.m. inside the Geneva Presbyterian Church in Laguna Woods, Calif., about 50 miles southeast of Los Angeles in a community largely made up of retirees and one that has a well-established Asian community. Most of the victims were of Taiwanese descent, though officials were still investigating if they had been targeted, said Carrie Braun, a spokeswoman for the Orange County Sheriff's Department." An AP report is here.

Washington Post: "The suspect in the Buffalo supermarket massacre purchased the primary weapon allegedly used in the shooting -- a used Bushmaster XM-15 semiautomatic rifle -- from a licensed dealer near his hometown but said he then illegally modified the gun so he could use a high-capacity magazine. The suspect, 18-year-old Payton S. Gendron, described how he amassed his arsenal in lengthy online postings that authorities believe he wrote in the weeks before the massacre on Saturday." ~~~

~~~ New York Times: Asked about his plans after graduation for a school project last spring, "Payton Gendron, a senior, said he wanted to commit a murder-suicide, according to a law enforcement official briefed on the matter. He claimed to be joking, the official said. But the state police were summoned to investigate and took Mr. Gendron, then 17, into custody on June 8 under a state mental health law, police officials said Sunday. He had a psychiatric evaluation in a hospital but was released within a couple of days.... Two weeks later, Mr. Gendron graduated and fell off investigators' radar. On Saturday..., authorities say he kill[ed] 10 people and wounding three others in one of the deadliest racist massacres in recent United States history." An AP story is here. ~~~

~~~ New York Times: "A teenage gunman entranced by a white supremacist ideology known as replacement theory opened fire at a supermarket in Buffalo[, New York,] on Saturday, methodically shooting and killing 10 people and injuring three more, almost all of them Black, in one of the deadliest racist massacres in recent American history. The authorities identified the gunman as 18-year-old Payton S. Gendron of Conklin, a small town in New York's rural Southern Tier. Mr. Gendron drove more than 200 miles to mount his attack, which he also livestreamed, the police said, a chilling video feed that appeared designed to promote his sinister agenda. Shortly after Mr. Gendron was captured, a manifesto believed to have been posted online by the gunman emerged, riddled with racist, anti-immigrant views that claimed white Americans were at risk of being replaced by people of color. In the video that appeared to have been captured by the camera affixed to his helmet, an anti-Black racial slur can be seen on the barrel of his weapon." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: This is the same white supremacist theory that poor little rich white boy Tucker Carlson has been promoting on Fox "News." Take him off the air. ~~~

     ~~~ Here's a statement from President Biden on the mass murder.

Comments

[Akhilleus]

I posted this late last night, so I thought I’d carry it over to today:

Not paying attention…

Some not very swift political writer wannabe on the deadline.com site posted a real knee slapper of a story with the headline “White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki And Fox News’ Peter Doocy Lay Down Their Weapons”.

Hold on…hahahahahahaha…

Yeah, okay. Lay down their weapons. So Jen set down her sledgehammer and Petey dropped his rubber chicken. The piece goes on to depict Psaki and Doocy as worthy opponents, offering as “proof”, I suppose, a silly quote from terminal twit and self promoting asshole Piers Morgan who opined that they both did their jobs “superbly well”. I guess so, if Psaki’s job was to be a smart, informed, articulate press secretary for a real president and Doocy’s was to be a stuttering simpleton for a fake news organization.

In another stunning bit of journalistic triteness, the writer, oops, I mean “writer”, depicted Doocy as a “thorn in [Psaki’s] side. More like an annoying 5 year old who responds “why?” to everything.

So either this “writer” hasn’t been paying attention (even the president referred to Doocy as a stupid son of a bitch!) or he owes Doocy money.

Oh, and one other thing about Jen Psaki. How nice was it—and important—to have a competent, well adjusted, professional press secretary to communicate with the press and the public on behalf of a real president, and not a pack of snarky, snarling, insulting liars picking fights, refusing to respond to certain reporters, spreading disinformation (when they bothered to even show up) on behalf of a scheming, treasonous crook?

How refreshing normality can feel after four years of obsequious idiots and contentious assholes.

[Marie Burns]

@Akhilleus: Yeah, I've been remiss in referring to Sean Spicer, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Stephanie Grisham and Kayleigh McEnany as "press secretaries" instead of "press secretaries*." Most of Trump's Cabinet secretaries and other appointees deserved asterisks after their titles, too.

[Akhilleus]

Re: MoDo’s discovery that we are a country now controlled to a large extent by grudge-carrying theocrats.

Just picking up on this, are we?

Still to come: many axes for the grinding.

Confederates, including (or perhaps especially) those on the court, keep a running tally of slights and outrages, perceived or invented. Hit Man Sam drew on right wing outrage from the 13th century! Crusades were all the rage back then (Christians killing people on behalf of religion) and handguns had just been invented. Two big reasons for wingers to love that century. Also, women were often considered property. Another reason for R’s to love 800 year old legalisms.

Can’t wait to see medieval papal bulls inserted into SCOTUS opinions as precedence for some upcoming recidivist decisions affecting all Americans. What’s next for the court’s medievalists, a return to judicium dei? Oh, but not for confederates…only those they hate. Long list.

[Marie Burns]

@Akhilleus: Ah, you remind me of those fine New Hampshire legislators who were way ahead of the Supremes. Ten years ago, three GOP freshman state representatives introduced a bill requiring that state bills must have their origins in the 1215 Magna Carta.

Think Progress reported, "New Hampshire Democratic Party spokesman Ray Buckley said he was 'mostly speechless' when he heard about the bill. 'I appreciate all the hard work the Republican legislators are putting into the effort to make them look like extremists,' he said. 'Saves us the trouble.'”

One of the bill's sponsors admitted he didn't know much about the Magna Carta, but it is a fun read (English translation) & extremely helpful if you're concerned about what to do with the son of Llywelyn or the evil customs of the forests.

[Ken Winkes]

A lengthy 2016 article on the history of the student loan industry. Didn't know the government, too, was profiting from it. It's hardly an innocent bystander in the loan mess.

https://revealnews.org/article/who-got-rich-off-the-student-debt-crisis/

And on the unseemly oil profits. Outrageous as they are, we will end up doing nothing.

We do nothing about either student loans and other raids on the public because the gravitational pull of big money is so strong it outweighs us all.

[P.D. Pepe]

I'm wondering why Alito had to dig so far into history to makes his points when he could have just gone with the man who hated anything to do with sex, the anti vice crusader, Anthony Comstock, whose name is on the federal law for four decades. Here's what this bloke had to say; many put a lot of stock in these words while both women and men suffered:

"Lust defiles the body, debauches the imagination, corrupts the mind, deadens the will, destroys the memory, scars the conscience, hardens the heart, and demeans the soul."

Alrighty then––and all the nuns and priests made the sign of the cross.

Prior to the religious -revival movement (known as the Great Awakening––bigly yawns in the mornings) government efforts to censor speech were directed at religious heresy and seditious libel, rather than sexual expression. For most of the nineteenth century abortion was legal under common law. But after the C.A. many states not only prohibited abortion but prohibited information about birth control. And during that time as in our time it was mostly women who marched, who fought, who wrote, who took the brunt of those male boots always trying to keep them down.

P.S. Ken's "How refreshing normality can feel after four years of obsequious idiots and contentious assholes." Yes, but other than that normality we are still stuck with those aforementioned idiots and assholes. But I guess we are at a point where anything smacking of normality must be cheered. I felt this deeply yesterday when I took in our May flowers and bountiful trees ––-such solace I receive from nature along with a fear that too, may not last.

[Jeanne]

We in PA awoke two days ago to an explosion of tv pieces about our primitive band of repugnants running to replace Toomey and Gov. Wolf. The head monster has done a lot since IQ45 lost and is a Q and religious nut. He wants to be governor and take all of our rights away. Because Wolf kept us as safe as he could. The other race with Dr. Oz is even classier. The two opposing him are bigots and say Oz is too liberal. We have closed primaries, so Dems will be weeded out only in the person replacing Toomey and all three top Dems are good guys. There may be a fourth but he or she is lost in the horse race. All of a sudden the cowardly press is covering these horrific trumpies running and all agree the 2020 election was “stolen.” These people ARE MONSTERS. There seems to be nothing but a terrible future—. The Alabama part of PA has gained ground as the press has been sucked in and turned into weasels.

[Ken Winkes]

P.D.

In the wish I'd said it but I didn't department:

The line belonged to Akhilleus...

No question about that. The question is whether we've really turned the corner. I fear "obsequious idiots and contentious assholes" might be the new normal.

See our current SCOTUS and Jeanne's remark about Pennsylvania politics.

If "normal" means "common," we far up the proverbial creek.

[Akhilleus]

Marie,

Nice idea, basing modern laws in America on a feudal document from 13th C England. I especially liked the fact that one of the three stooges who demanded this condition admitted that he didn’t know shit about the Magna Carta. I guess he thought it sounded cool. Another way to “own the libs”, I guess. I’m also guessing that most of those libs they sought to own would have pointed out, without having to look it up, that the Magna Carta was designed to assert and protect the rights of rich, land owning elites.

Some things never change.

I’m a bit astounded, however, that they didn’t insist that the New Hampshire governor travel to England so all future bills could be signed at Runnymede, surrounded by heraldic banners and freshmen GOP idiots in chain mail and armor.

Just a side note. The name Runnymede has always elicited a bit of a giggle, sounding as it does like an undercooked desert.

“I’ll have the mede, but, eww, not if it’s runny.”

[Ken Winkes]

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/15/aramco-worlds-largest-company-reports-record-first-quarter-as-oil-prices-soar.html

[Akhilleus]

Arghh…dessert, not desert. Undercooked deserts are highly unlikely in this age of global warming.

[Ken Winkes]

When I saw how much was spent on sports betting since it was legalized four years ago, I wondered how we could possibly have paid for it.

https://apnews.com/article/us-supreme-court-sports-new-jersey-6c0493a9a0be610abd5ef18bd83a556a

Then saw this in the WaPo:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/05/15/unemployment-pandemic-fraud-identity-theft/

Whadda country!

[Bobby Lee]

@KW: The battle cry of the poor: "We must have more lottery tickets, for they are our only hope!"

[NiskyGuy]

Peter Doocy is brilliant at what he does, which is capture all of the attention to draw people away from the news that matters. His "finest" moment was at the end of President Biden's press conference on inflation, where Biden called him a moron. From that point on, Biden's comment was the only story told. As long as the mainstream (lamestream?) press keeps chasing the shiny object that is Faux's distraction and hysteria, real public servants like Jen Psaki don't have a fighting chance, no matter how good they are.