Tuesday
Dec312019
New Year's Day 2020
Afternoon Update:
Falih Hassan &
President Trump toughened his rhetoric toward Iran on Tuesday, saying the country would 'be held fully responsible' for the attack by Iraqi demonstrators on the United States Embassy compound in Baghdad, an assault that Mr. Trump said was directed by Tehran. 'This is not a Warning, it is a Threat. Happy New Year!' Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter on Tuesday evening, in some of his most bellicose language of the year toward Iran. The growing crisis has strained Mr. Trump’s aversion to war with Iran as well as his distaste for Middle East entanglements generally, including in Iraq.”
~~~ Peter Beinart of the Atlantic: "Over the last 18 months, Donald Trump has picked a fight with Iran that he won’t end and can’t win. That fight has had horrifying consequences for the Iranian people, led Tehran to restart its nuclear program, and now left parts of the American embassy compound in Baghdad in flames.... Absent a revolution that replaces the Islamic Republic with a more pliant regime, he’s at Iran’s mercy.... When it comes to Iran, Trump has shifted Republican foreign policy away from war without shifting it towards diplomacy—the only stable alternative to war. So he’s caught in a kind of purgatory."
Pete Buttigieg raised more than $24.7 million during the final three months of 2019, his campaign announced early Wednesday morning -- cementing his standing as one of the fundraising leaders of the 2020 Democratic presidential race."
New Rules. Benjamin Siu of ABC News: "It's the start of a new year, which means new state laws will take effect across the nation. Minimum wage hikes, fees for electric vehicles, new consumer privacy rules, gun regulations -- these are just a few of the issues state legislatures have dipped into or will be dipping into over the next decade."
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Falih Hassan, et al., of the New York Times: “Protesters broke into the heavily guarded compound of the United States Embassy in Baghdad on Tuesday and set fires inside in anger over American airstrikes that killed 24 members of an Iranian-backed militia over the weekend. The men did not enter the main embassy buildings and later withdrew from the compound, joining thousands of protesters and militia fighters outside chanting 'Death to America,' throwing rocks, covering the walls with graffiti and demanding that the United States withdraw its forces from Iraq. The situation remained combustible, with the crowd vowing to camp indefinitely outside the sprawling compound, the world’s largest embassy. Their ability to storm the most heavily guarded zone in Baghdad suggested that they had received at least tacit permission from Iraqi security officials sympathetic to their demands.... The United States military made a show of force in response to the turmoil, with helicopter gunships circling overhead. From inside the compound, loudspeakers warned the crowd outside to keep away from the walls.... The [U.S.] State Department said that American personnel were safe and that there were no plans to evacuate the embassy.” An AP story is here. ~~~
~~~ Conor Finnegan, et al., of ABC News: "The Pentagon expects to send additional U.S. troops to the Middle East after hundreds of protesters, fomented by pro-Iranian militias and seemingly permitted by Iraqi security forces, attempted to storm the U.S. embassy in Baghdad.... There are already 5,000 U.S. troops in the country, there to train and support Iraqi security forces in the fight against the Islamic State. A number of U.S. Marines from Kuwait had already arrived at the Baghdad embassy to bolster security, according to two U.S. officials, one of whom said it was about 100 Marines. Two Apache helicopters conducted a show of force over the embassy, firing flares as a warning to protesters, another official said." ~~~
~~~ Thomas Franck of CNBC: “... Donald Trump on Tuesday blamed Iran for planning an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Iraq and promised to hold Tehran 'fully responsible.' 'Iran killed an American contractor, wounding many. We strongly responded, and always will,' the president wrote on Twitter. 'Now Iran is orchestrating an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Iraq. They will be held fully responsible.' 'In addition, we expect Iraq to use its forces to protect the Embassy, and so notified!' he added.... Trump’s tweet came after dozens of angry Iraqi Shiite militia supporters stormed the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad and set fire to a reception area on the grounds earlier in the day. The Iraqi supporters, many dressed in military apparel, pushed into the compound using cars to break through its gate. The protesters hung a poster on the wall saying, 'America is an aggressor.'” Mrs. McC: I'm sure our embassy personnel feel a lot safer knowing Trump is threatening Iran & Iraq from the comfort of Mar-a-Lago. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Heather Hurlburt of New York: “Three factors led to the attack on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad on Tuesday, and Trump only bears responsibility for two of them. But now he and his administration will have to manage a volatile situation that puts Americans in danger and undercuts his goal of disentangling the U.S. from Middle East conflicts.... Iraq’s government is weak and disliked by pretty much all wings of a divided Iraqi society. This is not Trump’s doing.... Trump does bear responsibility for Iraq increasingly becoming the place where U.S.-Iranian tensions play out.... After the Trump administration left the [Iran nuclear] deal and tightened the economic screws on Iran, the country retaliated by becoming more active in Iraq.... In [the] confusion [caused by Trump's withdrawal of U.S. troops from Kurdish-held Syrian territory earlier in 2019], Iranian-backed militias saw an opportunity to increase their influence.... On Twitter, Kelly Magsamen, who served in senior national security positions under both presidents Obama and Bush, described what’s needed now: 'cool headed leadership and a functioning national security process that effectively develops and evaluates options. We have neither.'”
Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "As Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. prepares to preside over the impeachment trial of President Trump, he issued pointed remarks on Tuesday in his year-end report on the state of the federal judiciary that seemed to be addressed, at least in part, to the president himself.... The nominal focus of the report was the importance of civics education, but even a casual reader could detect a timely subtext, one concerned with the foundational importance of the rule of law." CNN's report is here.
Dartunorro Clark of NBC News: "Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, criticized Republicans and Democrats — citing Sens. Mitch McConnell and Elizabeth Warren by name — for making comments about the Senate impeachment trial of ... Donald Trump before it has even started.... Collins also told Maine Public Radio that she is 'open' to calling witnesses in the Senate trial but stopped short of saying which administration officials should testify."
The Democrats will do anything to avoid a trial in the Senate in order to protect Sleepy Joe Biden, and expose the millions and millions of dollars that 'Where’s' Hunter, & possibly Joe, were paid by companies and countries for doing NOTHING. Joe wants no part of this mess! -- Donald Trump, in a tweet Tuesday ~~~
~~~ Greg Sargent of the Washington Post: “Trump is now openly calling for his impeachment trial to be converted into something that is purely devoted to serving his own political needs — one that only includes witnesses that will help him keep smearing potential 2020 opponent Joe Biden, but has no meaningful relevance whatsoever to the corrupt conduct for which he has been impeached.... Incredibly, this comes as Senate Republicans push for a trial that features none of the witnesses who actually do have direct knowledge of that very same corrupt conduct.... They are doing this to protect Trump — and themselves — because he’s guilty as charged, and they know it.... There’s a deep irony here: Biden actually did work for years to root out kleptocracy and corruption in Ukraine, explicitly describing this as essential to drawing it into the Western orbit, and away from Russian predation, serving our national interests. By contrast, Trump actually does not care a whit about corruption in Ukraine. He used it as his cover story for extorting the Ukrainian president to help him advance his own kleptocratic and corrupt designs, subverting our national interests to his own.” (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Betsy Swan & Sam Brodey of the Daily Beast: “Former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe faced scorching criticism and potential criminal prosecution for changing his story about a conversation he had with a Wall Street Journal reporter. Now newly released interview transcripts show McCabe expressed remorse to internal FBI investigators when they pressed him on the about-face. The FBI released the documents in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).... [On the day Trump fired Jim Comey -- May 9, 2017 -- McCabe said in an] interview..., [which was ostensibly on another topic,] he did not know how the Journal story came to be. But a few months later, his story changed after he reviewed his answer.... On Aug. 18, FBI officials met with McCabe in an attempt to work through what they said was 'conflicting information' they had gathered about the possible leak to the Journal.” In that interview, McCabe said he authorized the Journal report.... McCabe’s lawyer has said his story changed because in the initial interview he wasn’t prepared for the question. The question surprised him, and he didn’t give his answer a second thought because Comey was fired shortly after the interview concluded and his world turned upside down."
Joshua Partlow & David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post: "Nearly a year after the Trump Organization pledged to root out undocumented workers at its properties, supervisors at the Trump Winery on Monday summoned at least seven employees and fired them because of their lack of legal immigration status, according to two of the dismissed workers. The timing of the firings at the rural Virginia winery, 11 months after the company began purging the ranks of undocumented greenskeepers and cooks at Trump golf courses, came during the vineyard’s winter downtime. Workers had finished the arduous annual grape harvest, which involved working 60-hour weeks and overnight shifts under floodlights. Two of the fired workers — Omar Miranda, a 42-year-old tractor driver from Honduras, and a second employee who spoke on the condition of anonymity ... — said they thought the company had held off on firing them until after the year’s work was complete, taking advantage of their labor for as long as possible. Both had worked at the winery for more than a decade.... Legally, the wine is manufactured by the Eric Trump Wine Manufacturing Company, of which Eric Trump is president. But President Trump owns the land under the winery, which produces rental income — between $300,000 and $3 million in 2018, according to his financial disclosures. He also owns the Albemarle hotel on the property, which took in $1.14 million in revenue in 2018." CNN has a story citing the WashPo report here.
Trumplethinskin. Cristina Cabrera of TPM: "The Trump administration was reportedly thrown into a tailspin in 2017 when someone at the U.S. Mission to the European Union in Brussels used the embassy’s official account to 'like' an anti-Trump tweet from Chelsea Clinton.... The spat followed Trump’s decision that week to place his eldest daughter, Ivanka Trump, in his seat at one of the G-20 meetings while he attended private meetings at the summit. According to the Daily Beast, the State Department first called the mission to complain about the offensive 'like,' then opened a weeks-long investigation into the matter.... At least 10 people were grilled in the probe.... Ultimately, they failed to snag the transgressor. The snafu fueled the paranoia that plagues Trump’s administration, which has made extensive efforts to root out staffers deemed 'anti-Trump' or otherwise insufficiently loyal to the President." --s
"The Daily Show" compiled this video for laughs, but it should make us all sad and alarmed. ~~~
Justin Elliott & Paul Kiel of ProPublica: “Finding free online tax filing should be easier this year for millions of Americans. The IRS announced significant changes Monday to its deal with the tax prep software industry. Now companies are barred from hiding their free products from search engines such as Google, and a years-old prohibition on the IRS creating its own online filing system has been scrapped. The addendum to the deal, known as Free File, comes after ProPublica’s reporting this year on how the industry, led by TurboTax maker Intuit, has long misled taxpayers who are eligible to file for free.... The addendum ... expressly bars the companies from 'engaging in any practice' that would exclude their Free File offerings 'from an organic internet search.' ProPublica reported in April that Intuit and H&R Block had added code to their Free File pages that hid them from Google and other search engines, diverting many users to the companies’ paid products.”
Valerie Volcovici of Reuters: "A panel of scientific advisers, including several appointed by ... Donald Trump, says some rollbacks of clean-air and vehicle rules proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency are based on weak scientific analysis and should be revised, according to draft reports published on Tuesday." --s
Choe Sang-Hun of the New York Times: "North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, said his country no longer felt bound by its self-imposed moratorium on testing nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles, its official media reported on Wednesday, the strongest indication yet that the country could soon resume such tests.... North Korea has not conducted a long-range missile test or a nuclear test in more than two years." NPR's story is here.
Presidential Race 2020. An Indiana Man Becomes Youngest Unemployed Person in Presidential Race. Ursula Perano of Axios: Pete "Buttigieg's term as mayor [of South Bend, Indiana, ends] Wednesday as James Mueller, who served in Buttigieg's administration as chief of staff, is set to be sworn in. Buttigieg announced he would not run for re-election in 2018. Mueller received Buttigieg's endorsement in February 2019. He won a crowded primary for the city's Democratic nomination in May." Buttigieg joins several other unemployed men who aspire to the top job.
Senate Race 2020. Justin Baragona of the Daily Beast: “Former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski took to Twitter on Tuesday to announced that he will not run for Senate in New Hampshire.... 'After much consideration I have decided to forgo a campaign for the US Senate,' he tweeted. 'While taking on a career politician from the Washington swamp is a tall order, I am certain I would have won. My priorities remain my family and ensuring that @realDonaldTrump is re-elected POTUS.'” Mrs. McC: No, no, I would have won had I run. Corey has figured out the best way not to lose: don't even try. What a jerk. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: A December poll showed incumbent Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D) beating Lewandowski 58%-35%.
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Fox Nation. Joan Greve of the Guardian: "Fox News saw its biggest year ever in 2019, attracting the highest number of viewers in its 23-year history. According to ratings from Nielsen, Fox hit an average of 2.5 million viewers per night in 2019, making it the top-rated basic cable network. Fox easily beat out third-place MSNBC, which attracted an average 1.75 million viewers. The network also aired four of the top five most-watched shows on cable news in 2019[.]" --s ~~~
~~~ safari: In light of this depressing Fox news, I'm reupping this piece by Garrett Graff of Wired [Dec. 11]: "The lies and obfuscations forwarded ad infinitum on Fox News pose a dangerous threat to the national security of the United States.... Fox’s bubble reality creates a situation where it’s impossible to have the conversations and debate necessary to function as a democracy. Facts that are inconvenient to President Trump simply disappear down Fox News’ 'memory hole,' as thoroughly as George Orwell could have imagined in 1984.... Fox’s clear willingness to parrot the wingnuttiest ideas in service of the president, long-term implications to the United States be damned, should worry all concerned about the state of the United States." --s
Earth. Reuters: "Microscopic pieces of plastic have been discovered in the most remote locations, from the depths of the ocean to Arctic ice - and in our bodies as we breathe in and eat microplastic, and drink plastic-infused water every day. People could be ingesting the equivalent of a credit card of plastic a week, a recent study by WWF International concluded, mainly in drinking water but also via food like shellfish, which tend to be eaten whole so the plastic in their digestive systems is also consumed. Reuters used the findings of the study to illustrate what this amount of plastic actually looks like over various periods of time. (Open here in an external browser to see a visualization of the amount of microplastic we consume.)" --s
Beyond the Beltway
Illinois. Kathleen Foody of the AP: "Illinois’ governor granted more than 11,000 pardons for low-level marijuana convictions on Tuesday, describing the step as a first wave of thousands of such expungements anticipated under the state’s new marijuana legalization law. The expungement process is a key part of the law, which takes effect Wednesday and made Illinois the 11th state to legalize marijuana for people 21 or older. When they crafted the policy, Illinois lawmakers said they wanted to repair some of the damage caused by law enforcement’s efforts to combat sale and use of the drug, particularly in minority communities. Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker announced the pardons at a church on Chicago’s South Side. He said clearing the misdemeanor offenses from individuals’ records will make it easier for them to get jobs, housing and financial aid for college."
North Carolina. Will Doran of the Raleigh News & Observer: “Racial discrimination was at least part of the motivation for a new voter ID law in North Carolina, a federal judge wrote Tuesday, striking the law down for now. In a 60-page ruling evoking decades of racism in North Carolina, the judge wrote that parts of the new voter ID law 'were impermissibly motivated, at least in part, by discriminatory intent.'... Her ruling means that although voters statewide approved a voter ID mandate as an amendment to the state constitution in the 2018 elections, people most likely will be able to vote without showing ID in at least the March primary election.”
Way Beyond
Australia. Isabella Kwai of the New York Times: "As the fire stalked the east coast of Australia on Tuesday, the daytime sky turned inky black, then blood red. Emergency sirens wailed, followed by the thunder of gas explosions. Thousands of residents fled their homes and huddled near the shore. There was nowhere else to go. Apocalyptic scenes like these in Mallacoota, a vacation destination between Sydney and Melbourne, came on the last day of the warmest decade on record in Australia. The country is in the grip of a devastating fire season, with months of summer still to go, as record-breaking temperatures, strong winds and prolonged drought have ignited huge blazes across the country. The government prepared to deploy navy vessels and military helicopters to help fight the fires and evacuate people.... Australia is normally hot and dry in summer, but climate change, which brings more frequent and longer periods of extreme heat, worsens these conditions and makes vegetation drier and more likely to burn." ~~~
~~~ Some ghastly images of Australia's current 'bushfire day of terror', with more on the way. --s
Russia. Ilya Arkhipov & Stepan Kravchenko of Bloomberg: "More than a million Russians have been caught up in the worst wave of bomb threats in years, sending people to social media for information about events largely ignored by Kremlin-controlled national television.... In Moscow alone, more than a million people have been evacuated since Nov. 28, according to Interfax.... The source of the calls hasn’t been established, but Russia has been targeted by terrorist groups, including Islamic State, in the past. The Federal Security Service, or FSB, detained two suspects in St. Petersburg last week after receiving intelligence from the U.S. about a possible attack." --s
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Reader Comments (7)
Clearly, trump did not watch the West Wing episode that involves "Proportional Response." The nincompoop is putting people in danger.
We are watching the Boing-ization of the federal government. Fire everyone who knows what is going on, put over-entitled morons in charge. What could possibly go wrong?
Be It Resolved (LTTE).
"Willing to make and fulfill a New Year’s resolution that might be even harder than eating a little less and exercising more?
How about this? Resolve to ferret out and acknowledge facts, even ones you don’t like.
It’ll take some gumption in our he said-she said world where even outright lies are commonly presented as truth.
Is everything we read or hear that purports to be non-fiction truthful? Of course not, and sometimes there’s no clear distinction, even in libraries where one would expect fiction and non-fiction to be placed on different shelves. Do librarians classify books on creationism as science or religion? Or histories that say the Civil War was not about slavery, as truth or fiction?
It depends, so it is up to us to honestly weigh the evidence.
In this election year, we might start with tired claims like “tax breaks for wealthy benefit everyone.” They don’t (cbpp.org). Or the president’s “hoax” chorus about Russian election interference, climate change, and impeachment, which are not hoaxes at all (businessinsider.com).
Those are the easy ones. More difficult to identify than the outright lies are misleading statements like Trump saying that because Obama separated some families, his own administration’s family separation policy is no different. It is. Bigly (usatoday.com). Or detecting his administration's frequently employed censorship. Witness the recent erasure of the U. S. government map site that tracked pollution sources (thehill.com). Poof! Those nasty facts are gone.
We don’t know if Caesar’s invading troops deliberately or accidentally set the fire that destroyed the Library of Alexandria in 48 CE. We do know losing the world’s then greatest repository of knowledge was an immeasurable tragedy.
Today, failure to hold the Trump administration to account for its deliberate promotion of “Truth Decay” (rand.org) would be a tragedy of our own making."
It's the first day of this new decade which promises to be even more chaotic and terrifying than the last. Where are the smiling faces of yesteryears where one is greeted with "Happy New Year," with hopeful urgency in their voices–- their fervent belief in change for the better? There hangs over all the hoopla that these holiday festivities provide a kind of dark web of dread.
In Michael Moore's excellent documentary, "Fahrenheit 11/9" there is a screen shot of Nancy Pelosi in 2016 saying she is certain that Donald Trump will never become president; this follows many other prominent political voices citing the same. Moore, himself, knew differently because it seems he had a sharper ear to the ground as he so often has. Ken in his comments above talks of truth and lies –-knowing the clear distinction between them, being able to discern the difference and acting on it immediately. We wait too long before we rise up against the fascist maneuvers of this administration and the clan that supports it.
It's ironic that as we approached the new year of 2003 we were on the brink of the Iraq war; today we are still there with a new bloody confrontation to deal with. Lessons learned––somehow we seem to be going backwards and that is what is terrifying.
And oh, how I wish I could feel less pessimistic –-less doom and gloom––perhaps I need to watch more Daily Show videos where I can laugh at the antics of our failed leader who slurs his words and pretends he knows what he doesn't. But I can't––as Marie said, "it should make us all sad and alarmed."
"always look on the bright side of life"––sung with such gusto!
@safari
Looking on the bright side, per PD's injunction, I'd offer this, the latest I could find on NYTimes circulation.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/new-york-times-subscriber-numbers-are-skyrocketing-in-the-trump-age-2019-02-06
I'd posit that the polarizing Pretender is boosting the Fox numbers, tho' maybe not to the degree he has been a gift to the Times and the WAPO, because FOX is the handy home of professional excuse providers for the succession of Pretender outrages.
Feeling embattled because they have been told to be and are, Pretender adherents seek comfort where they can find it.
Liberals, on the other hand, generally have access to and consult more sources of news and information and are therefore not as tied to TV, even when the programming is to their liking.
Optimistic enough?
Contra many: 2020 is the last year of the present decade. The next decade will begin on 1/1/2021. It's therefore too soon to give up on providing this first decade of the 2000s with a better ending.
@Keith Howard: You're right; that's the reason I've been hesitant to call today the beginning of a new decade. Unfortunately, 99% of the world disagrees with us, just as they disagreed with us when the clock struck midnight at the beginning of 2000. I don't think the "fact" is a winner here.
Keith,
Thanks.
Reminded me of S. J. Gould's "Questioning the Millennium" and all the pleasant hours I have spent in his company over the years.
And, Bea, thanks to you in a more general sense than you meant it above, "fact" IS a winner here on RC.