April 10, 2022
Late Morning/Afternoon Update:
From the New York Times' live updates of the French presidential election, also linked earlier today: "President Emmanuel Macron will face Marine Le Pen, the French far-right leader, in the runoff of France's presidential elections, according to projections based on preliminary ballot counts published by French polling agencies on Sunday at the close of voting. The projections, which may still shift but are generally a good indicator of the outcome, showed Mr. Macron leading with about 28.5 percent of the vote, and Ms. Le Pen in second place with 24.2 percent, after a late surge that reflected widespread disaffection over rising prices, security and immigration."
Bob Brigham of the Raw Story: "Donald Trump's once iron-clad grip on the Republican Party appears to have weakened as prominent conservatives are openly griping about his endorsement of Dr. Mehmet Oz in the GOP primary for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania. But, um, some of the gripers are blaming Trump's staff, not Trump himself. "The ongoing need to blame everyone but Trump for Trump's own choices is striking given that Brooks, who Trump dumped, is one of those doing it," Maggie Haberman of the New York Times tweeted.
Texas. Giulia Heyward & Sophie Kasakove of the New York Times: "The murder charge against a woman in Texas in connection with a 'self-induced abortion' will be dismissed, a Texas district attorney announced Sunday. Gocha Allen Ramirez, the district attorney of Starr County, said in a statement that, after reviewing the case, he will file a motion on Monday to dismiss the indictment against the woman, Lizelle Herrera, 26. 'It is my hope that with the dismissal of this case it is made clear that Ms. Herrera did not commit a criminal act under the laws of the State of Texas,' Mr. Ramirez said."
Utah. Ed Scarce of Crooks & Liars: "... there were more proven instances of voter fraud among Salt Lake County Republicans than 'has been proven in Utah's entire 2020 election.' [From the (firewalled) Salt Lake Tribune:] 'For Salt Lake County Republicans, warnings of voter fraud came from inside the party on Saturday. The vote to nominate a GOP candidate for Salt Lake County Clerk was marred when a pair of delegates were caught attempting to vote more than once, with one extra vote making it into a ballot box at Saturday's county nominating convention.'" MB: In fairness to Republicans, perhaps one reason they're so "concerned" about voter fraud is that Republicans themselves are such cheaters. The vast majority of proven cases of intentional fraud during the 2020 election, as far as I recall, were Republicans, not Democrats, voting twice, voting for their dead relatives, voting in places they don't live (Mark Meadows). It's about projection.
Christina Zhao & Molly Roecker of NBC News: "Sixty-eight attendees have tested positive for Covid-19 after attending the Gridiron Dinner in Washington last weekend, including members of the Biden administration and reporters. Gridiron Club President Tom DeFrank said Saturday that the group had reported 67 cases out of the hundreds of people who attended. On Sunday, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who was also at the dinner, tested positive. This is the first that the Gridiron Dinner has taken place since 2019, before the pandemic."
Matt Schudel of the Washington Post: "Mimi Reinhard was being held at a Nazi concentration camp near Krakow, Poland, in 1944, but because she spoke flawless German and could take shorthand, she was allowed to work in the camp office. One of her jobs was to compile a list of Jewish prisoners working in factories owned by industrialist Oskar Schindler. Mrs. Reinhard, then known as Carmen Weitmann, typed the names of more than 1,000 Jewish people -- including her own and those of two friends -- to create what became known as 'Schindler's List.' She called herself a 'schreibkraft,' or typist.... As a result, she and more than 1,000 other Jews were saved from near-certain annihilation in the Nazi death camps of World War II. Mrs. Reinhard, who later became Schindler's secretary, has died in Israel at age 107."
Michael Schmidt & Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "The leaders of the House committee investigating the Capitol attack have grown divided over whether to make a criminal referral to the Justice Department of ... Donald J. Trump, even though they have concluded that they have enough evidence to do so, people involved in the discussions said. The debate centers on whether making a referral -- a largely symbolic act -- would backfire by politically tainting the Justice Department's expanding investigation into the Jan. 6 assault and what led up to it.... The shift in the committee's perspective on making a referral was prompted in part by a ruling two weeks ago by Judge David O. Carter of the Federal District Court for Central California ... found that it was 'more likely than not' that Mr. Trump and Mr. Eastman had committed federal crimes.... [Some committee members and staff felt that] the judge's decision would carry far greater weight with Mr. Garland than any referral letter they could write...." See Patrick's comment in today's thread. ~~~
~~~ MEANWHILE. House Team Trump Is in the Dark. Paul Kane of the Washington Post: "One by one, Republicans eviscerated the work of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, each one bemoaning the fact that the chief congressional security officials had not been subpoenaed to examine that day's security lapses. Not interviewing these key officials was proof, they suggested, that the committee was just out to score political points against Republicans. Finally, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) shut down that line of debate on Wednesday with some information these Republicans did not seem to know. 'We have in fact interviewed precisely the people they set up as a test for the validity of our investigation,' Raskin said. Those top security officials 'didn't need a subpoena' to testify..., Raskin said. 'They came voluntarily.'... Dozens of GOP lawmakers are left in the dark about what evidence the committee has collected involving their own contacts with Trump and his senior advisers in the run up to, and during, the attack on the Capitol." And why don't Republicans know what's going on? -- Because Kevin McCarthy decided not to put any semi-rational members on the committee & he iced out the two Republicans who are on the committee. ~~~
~~~ Marie: This is an example of how dumb House Republicans are. Story after story has emphasized the hundreds of people the committee has interviewed without need for subpoenaes. Yet somehow it doesn't occur to anyone on this team of bozos that security officials were among those hundreds of people who sat for interviews.
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The New York Times' live updates of developments Sunday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here: "Ukrainian officials and their allies warned that Russian forces will likely target civilian areas in the east as Russia appointed a new battlefield commander accused of using scorched earth tactics in Syria. The general, Aleksandr V. Dvornikov, oversaw forces accused of bombing residential neighborhoods to break support for groups opposed to Syria's leader, Bashar al-Assad. Similar assaults have been reported in Ukraine in recent days.... Britain's defense intelligence service said Saturday that Russia's pullback from Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, revealed 'evidence of the disproportionate targeting of non-combatants.' And there are no signs Russian forces will change tactics." ~~~
~~~ The Washington Post's live updates for Sunday are here: "Officials in the Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine this weekend urged residents to evacuate immediately, as shelling intensified amid Russia's shift to the country's east. Luhansk's governor, Serhiy Haidai, on Saturday said there were 'far fewer people' willing to evacuate after a missile strike on a railway station killed at least 52 people and injured 98. The shift east, away from Ukraine's largest cities, could prove challenging for Ukrainian troops and advantageous for Russian troops, who Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, noted last week are more skilled at fighting in rural terrain.... Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged the international community to push harder against Moscow, specifically in refusing to buy Russian oil -- something the United States has done but Europe has resisted. In an address Saturday night, he said Russian oil and gas were the 'two sources of Russian self-confidence, and their sense of impunity.'" ~~~
~~~ The Guardian's live updates for Sunday are here.
Guardian & Agencies: "Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said Russia is targeting all of Europe with its aggression and that stopping the invasion of Ukraine is essential for the security of all democracies.... In his late-night address to Ukrainians on Saturday, the Ukrainian president said Russian aggression 'was not intended to be limited to Ukraine alone' and the 'entire European project is a target for Russia.... That is why it is not just the moral duty of all democracies, all the forces of Europe, to support Ukraine's desire for peace,' he said. 'This is, in fact, a strategy of defence for every civilised state.'"
Luke Harding & Clea Skopeliti of the Guardian: U.K. Prime Minister "Boris Johnson is meeting the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy during an unannounced visit to Kyiv, Ukrainian officials have said. A picture posted on Twitter by the embassy of Ukraine to the UK showed the two leaders sitting across a table in the capital, with their respective flags in the background.... 'The prime minister has travelled to Ukraine to meet President Zelenskiy in person, in a show of solidarity with the Ukrainian people,' [a No. 10] spokesperson said. 'They will discuss the UK's long-term support to Ukraine and the PM will set out a new package of financial and military aid.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Update. Bethan McKernan & Toby Helm of the Guardian: "Boris Johnson made a surprise trip to Kyiv yesterday to meet the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, pledging a major new infusion of British arms and financial aid to help counter the expected deadly new phase in Russia's military offensive. After the meeting, the prime minister said: 'Ukraine has defied the odds and pushed back Russian forces from the gates of Kyiv, achieving the greatest feat of arms of the 21st century. It is because of president Zelenskiy's resolute leadership and the invincible heroism and courage of the Ukrainian people that Putin's monstrous aims are being thwarted.... We are stepping up our own military and economic support and convening a global alliance to bring this tragedy to an end, and ensure Ukraine survives and thrives as a free and sovereign nation.'"
Julian Barnes of the New York Times: "Slovakia's decision to provide Ukraine with a Soviet-era S-300 air defense unit, a move made with the blessing of the United States, represents a new phase in the war, as allied countries look to help the Ukrainian military hold off an expected offensive from a newly concentrated Russian force and better prepare for a potentially long conflict.... Now the allied governments have shown a willingness to send heavier weaponry more suited to the coming battle in Donbas, including tanks and longer-range defensive weapons such as the S-300s, a Russian-made surface-to-air system used mainly to attack enemy aircraft.... Kyiv's commanders now need better air defense systems and longer-range weapons than they currently have to defend the bulk of the Ukrainian army in the country's east. So far, the Biden administration has not been willing to provide weapons that would allow Ukraine to strike deep into Russia, though some experts say that damaging Russian military airfields would improve Ukraine's chances of withstanding a renewed offensive." ~~~
~~~ Liz Sly & Dan Lamothe of the Washington Post: "The wide open spaces will make it harder for the Ukrainians to run guerrilla operations as they did in the forests of the north and west and play to Russia's ability to muster large mechanized formations of tanks and armored vehicles. But much will depend on whether the Russians can rectify the mistakes they made in the first phase of their invasion, ranging from the failure of supply lines, logistical challenges and poor planning to using insufficient manpower for the size of the area they were attempting to seize, analysts say."
Cara Anna of the AP reports on a walk-through of Bucha, Ukraine, "part of an ongoing investigation from The Associated Press and Frontline that includes the War Crimes Watch Ukraine interactive experience and an upcoming documentary." Very hard to read.
I Had a Dream: ~~~
Annals of "Journalism," Ha Ha Ha. No, There Will Not Be a Better Fox "News." Sarah Ellison & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "In a speech in Sydney celebrating a new initiative at a conservative think tank, Lachlan Murdoch -- now 50 and the co-chairman of the family's News Corp., which owns the Wall Street Journal and New York Post, and chairman and CEO of Fox Corporation -- took swipes at the 'elites' whom he believes disdain traditional values. He also blasted governments for imposing mandates and business shutdowns to control the pandemic and alleged conspiratorially that 'practically all the media suppressed the discovery of Hunter Biden's laptop.' It was a monologue that could have fit in seamlessly with the lineup of right-wing commentary served up every night by Fox News's prime time opinion hosts.... And he echoed the culture-war battles raging on cable news over school curriculums by painting a dire picture of what he sees happening in Australia." ~~~
~~~ Marie: I'm just noticing that SNL joke journalism is more accurate than Fox "News" fake journalism.
Beyond the Beltway
Pennsylvania Senate Race. Craven Phonies Stick Together. Trip Gabriel of the New York Times: "Wading into a tight Republican Senate primary in Pennsylvania..., Donald J. Trump endorsed Mehmet Oz on Saturday, throwing his weight behind the former star of 'The Dr. Oz Show,' who has been attacked by rivals as a closet liberal. Dr. Oz's celebrity appears to have been a deciding factor for the former president, whose own political career was grounded in reality television." Politico's story is here.
Puerto Rico. Coral Marcos of the New York Times: "Power has been restored to 90 percent of Puerto Rico, according to the island's power operator, though more than 200,000 residents remained without electricity on Saturday, three days after the outage began.... But ... many customers across the island who saw their power get turned back on were still experiencing service disruptions.... The outage, which started on Wednesday after a fire at one of Luma's largest power plants, is only the latest in a series of problems with the island's energy grid that has persisted for years."
Texas. Pablo De La Rosa, et al., of Texas Public Radio: "Police in Starr County on the Texas-Mexico border have arrested and charged a woman with murder for allegedly performing what they called a 'self-induced abortion.' The Starr County Sheriff's Office arrested 26-year-old Lizelle Herrera on Thursday. TPR confirmed Friday night that Herrera was in the custody of the Starr County Sheriff's Office with bond set at $500,000. By Saturday night, Herrera was released from custody." Saturday at 8:30 pm ET this was a developing story. According to an AP story, "It's unclear whether Lizelle Herrera is accused of having an abortion or whether she helped someone else get an abortion."
Virginia. Michael Luciano of Mediaite: "A Republican official in Virginia is refusing to step down after a racist Facebook post he apparently authored last year surfaced recently. The post attributed to Hampton, Virginia Electoral Board Chair David Dietrich was added to the platform in February 2021 and is just coming into public view for some reason. The post appeared to be prompted by an effort by Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, to expunge White supremacists and other far-right elements in the United States military. Dietrich specifically mentioned Austin, who is Black, and claimed the measure was in fact a plot 'to remove conservative, freedom-loving Americans from the roles.' He added, 'These so-called "leaders" are so vile and racist, there's no way to describe them other than in terms their own people understand. They are nothing more than dirty, stinking ni***rs....'"
Way Beyond
France. The New York Times is live-updating developments Sunday in France's presidential race. The first round of voting is today.
Pakistan. Christina Goldbaum & Salman Masood of the New York Times: "Imran Khan, the former international cricket star turned politician who oversaw a new era of Pakistan's foreign policy that distanced the country from the United States, was removed as prime minister early on Sunday after losing a no-confidence vote in Parliament. The vote, coming amid soaring inflation and a rift between Mr. Khan's government and the military, capped a political crisis that has embroiled the country for weeks and came down to the wire in a parliamentary session that dragged into the early morning hours. Pakistan remains in a state of turmoil as it heads into an early election season in the coming months. The recent crisis has charged the country's already polarized political climate and has exacerbated tensions between civilian institutions and the country's powerful military establishment." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) A BBC News story is here.
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Reader Comments (15)
A sermon read locally, but with wider application:
“Spot the difference” picture puzzles have been around for a long time. I remember them from childhood and have watched my own grandchildren trying to find the things that appear in one of the paired pictures but not in the other.
Some differences in those pictures are pronounced, some subtle, but even the subtle differences (a cap bill turned the wrong way?) become obvious once detected.
The ceremonial issue of a new stamp at the Mt. Vernon Post Office brought those puzzles to mind. The stamp featured tulips, the beautiful flower that over the years has made Skagit Valley the destination for thousands of tourists every April, contributing multi-millions of dollars to the local economy.
Like many, I hastened to buy a sheet of those stamps, but when I looked them over, it seemed something important was missing. The stamp features a dozen or so tulips, arranged in a pleasing array of reds, pinks, yellows, and whites, but the field workers who bring us all that beauty are not in the picture.
The recent farm worker strike at the Washington Bulb Company, which grows 1000 acres of tulips, daffodils, and iris (tulip.com), reminded us they do exist. As the annual Tulip Festival approached, field workers protesting pay and working conditions walked off the job and voted to ally themselves with Familias Unidas for la Justicia, a farm workers union. Suddenly, the farm workers who don’t appear on that new stamp were very visible.
On April 3rd, strike settled, the tulips, not the workers, were back on the Skagit Valley Herald’s front page.
Crossing one’s eyes to superimpose one puzzle picture on the other makes it easier to find the missing items. I’m thinking a cross-eyed look at the new tulip stamp might keep the workers in sight--and in mind.
Why read Douthat?
Easier to say why not to read him, I know, but I persist.
Masochism? Yes, a little. Time on my hands? Probably. But always the eccentric curiosity of an old Catholic boy. How will this smart man once again justify the unjustifiable (as in the necessity for some kind of religious claptrap in our lives to give them direction and meaning)?
This time Douthat went to war. Then somewhere else.
And today is Sunday...
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/09/opinion/ukraine-russia-liberalism-religion.html
My comment:
Not to worry, Mr. Douthat. As long as there is plutocracy and its handmaiden, corporate capitalism, whose purposes are antithetical to a reasonable or fair distribution of resources and hence to democracy itself, there will always be a wolf or two at the majority's door.
Secularly yours...
I must admit, when I saw Friedman's title, "How Do We Deal With a Superpower Led by a War Criminal?", the first thing I thought of was the W unprovoked invasion of Iraq. But W is still out and about, painting pictures of his toes in the bath.
I remember that the vote for the authorization of that criminal invasion happened during the Anthrax attack on the capital, so physical mail could not go through. Email to my senators against the invasion went into a black hole, never answered. Faxes took many attempts before they went through, only to also go unanswered. Phone calls? Hah.
There was an impenetrable wall of stupid around the groupthink that allowed that horrible invasion to go through. I am still ashamed.
@Nisky Guy: Yeah, & Friedman was a big booster of our war on Iraq. I don't think Friedman writes his own headlines, so maybe the headline on today's column was some headline-writer's way of subtly pointing out what a hypocrite Friedman is. Of course if Friedman did suggest this headline, then it demonstrates his utter lack of self-awareness.
(I just skimmed Friedman's column. Looks like, whoever wrote the headline, "utter lack of self-awareness" wins. What a dolt.)
Marie just posted, top of the page, the NYT article about the January 6 House Panel quandary, whether 'tis nobler to refer to DOJ criminal findings on DiJiT & Co., thereby incurring the charge of political retribution and political direction of DOJ prosecutions, or to hold such referral anticipating that DOJ will know what to do with the evidence when it is laid before them.
All I know is that if the panel does not make a criminal referral, DiJiT will claim that as exoneration. It's what he does. And his volk are dumb enough to believe it.
If the evidence is there, the panel should state what it means. The president* broke the law by x, y, and z, and DOJ should factor that into their own investigation. It is time to rent garments on this one.
Not for nothin’, but the US was a superpower “led” by a criminal (didn’t get around to an actual hot war, but plenty of attacks against Americans he hated) for four years, a criminal whose vanity, ignorance, mendacity, bigotry, treason, and greed still find a depressingly huge audience of like minded haters and sycophants.
What do we do about that? Well, we were able (while we still can) to use the tools gifted us by the Constitution, democracy, for a start. Which is why that particular treasonous criminal’s party is on their own war path to destroy it.
As NiskyGuy points out, we did indeed have our own war criminal, for eight years. And instead of democracy, he gifted us world wide economic destruction, decades of war, the rise of numerous terrorist insurgencies, routine attacks on civil liberties, and a congress full of contemptible, malicious clowns.
At this point, The Deciders scorecard of evil far outstrips Tsar Putin’s. And yes, he’s still gallivanting about, painting pictures of his piggy toes in a nice warm bath.
The old KGB, the current Russian war criminals, and the current tsarist oligarchic class have nothing on the American Republican Party.
Patrick presents the issue well. To charge or not to charge?
I'll go with Patrick, despite the very real political concerns expressed by the committee's reluctant caucus and my sense that until--and even after--the Pretender wears an orange jump suit he will still claim that he's innocent and/or been exonerated. His lies will never stop. That's who he is. Lying for him is fundamental to his nature.
There are many steps involved in the decision. The internal committee debate about the matter. The committee's decision to refer or not to the AG. Then the immensely complicated legal and, yes still political maze the AG will have to negotiate.
But Patrick's right. Ignoring the Pretender's central part in the Jan. 6 enormity could be the final nail in our democracy's coffin.
We just can't say it was OK.
Republicans don't know what the Jan 6 Committee is doing?
Probably because they're so busy with their own investigation, no?
https://www.businessinsider.com/mccarthy-says-gop-will-run-its-own-investigation-january-6-2021-7
To the best of my recollection the House GOP never even bothered to appear to follow up on this. GOP leadership clearly thinks that the public has the memory of a mayfly, and the press won't follow up either. Why is this failure never mentioned in the stories about the January 6 Committee? It seems pertinent.
In other news, Franco is still dead.
I think it would be wise to hold off on the referral until after the committee's public hearings and presentations. It might then be better received by the audience.
For evidence in favor of making the DOJ refferal, see the Mueller Report. That fact that Robert Mueller didn't recommend charges for Trump, even while laying out evidence of clear criminal behavior, was used by Donald and Barr to exonerate Trump in public.
Pertaining to today's discussion:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/04/10/doj-justice-department-investigation-jan-6-donald-trump-prosecution/
Apropos Ukraine and our own moral currency: Excellent interview with Chomsky:
https://truthout.org/articles/chomsky-us-policy-toward-putin-assures-no-path-to-de-escalation-in-ukraine/
I am firmly with RAS. It may already be too late. Any strategy involving waiting is wrong. The GQP never wait for anything and Robert M cries at night…
@Patrick: re: the GOP "investigation." I had not seen a darned thing about the investigation Kevin announced last July, so I checked the Googles. In my first try, I didn't find anything, but thanks to Google, I found the following deep in a March 23, 2022, CNN report that led with info about the real January 6 committee:
"McCarthy pledged last year that Republicans would pursue their own 'investigation of the facts' after Pelosi rejected his picks to sit on the House Select Committee. Since then, two of the three Republicans vetoed by Pelosi have quietly undertaken the task.
"Davis and Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana have teamed up to informally investigate security failures. No Republican member can subpoena witness testimony or documents without the help of Democrats, so any information they have collected has been through voluntary cooperation.
"Davis declined to specify who he and his fellow Republicans have interviewed or what documents they've collected but noted several whistleblowers have come forward through a website his committee launched in the months following the riot....
"Two sources close to the GOP investigation say they have interviewed dozens of witnesses, including rank-and-file law enforcement and top brass."
For some reason, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) characterized the GOP effort as "obviously B.S."
OK, I take it back: House GOP DID bother to appear to follow up on Jan 6. The word "appear" doing about as little work as possible in that sentence. And the result will be "Pelosi failed in her security responsibility."