December 31, 2021
It's already 2022:
Late Morning Update:
Dana Hedgpeth of the Washington Post: "Four hundred years after the Mashpee Wampanoag in Plymouth, Mass., helped the Pilgrims from the Mayflower survive, they have been fighting to get their ancestral homeland back. Last week, they won a major victory in a ruling from the U.S. Department of the Interior that will give them substantial control of roughly 320 acres around Cape Cod. The decision opens the door for the Wampanoag tribe to move forward on economic development projects -- such as a casino resort or housing -- that tribal leaders say will bring much-needed revenue to their community of roughly 2,800 members.... In 2015, the Obama administration put about 320 acres in federal trust for the Mashpee Wampanoag, under a law that allows the Department of the Interior to acquire the title to property and hold it for the benefit of a Native American tribe.... But ... Donald Trump's administration ordered that the land be taken out of trust, jeopardizing the Mashpee Wampanoag's ability to develop it." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Hedgpeth writes a very brief historical overview of the Wampanoag in Massachusetts, and it is not what I read in my 5th-grade history book. This is the "critical race theory" that right-wingers object to. It isn't critical race theory at all, of course; but it is based on facts that those people Ted Koppel met on the bus (see yesterday's Commentariat), for instance, don't want to face and don't want their children & grandchildren to learn. These Americans are not indulging in nostalgia for a happier, simpler time; they're suffering from a pandemic of denialism. BTW, if you didn't see Koppel's "60 Minutes" segment, embedded in yesterday's Commentariat, it's worth checking out.
David Gerson of the Washington Post: "The default ethical stance of Christianity is the Golden Rule.... This principle was developed in a variety of other religious and moral traditions. (See the Babylonian Talmud: 'What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah.')... There is no version of the Golden Rule that would recommend Christian resistance to basic public health measures during a pandemic. This is heresy compounded by lunacy.... Evangelical Christians are generally known as people who loudly defend their own rights. They show not radical generosity but discreditable selfishness.... And when Christians are asserting a right to resist basic public health measures, what is the actual content of their religious-liberty claim? The right to risk the lives of their neighbors in order to assert their autonomy? The right to endanger the community in the performative demonstration of their personal rights? This is a vivid display of the cultural and ideological trends of a warped and wasted year. It just has nothing to do with real Christianity."
Peter Eisler, et al., of Reuters: "Reuters has documented more than 850 threatening and hostile messages aimed at election officials and staff related to the 2020 election. Virtually all expressed support for former President Donald Trump or echoed his debunked contention that the election was stolen. The messages spanned 30 jurisdictions in 16 states. They came via emails, voicemails, texts, letters and Internet posts.... The messages collected by Reuters are only a sample of all threats to election workers nationally, taken mostly from states, counties and cities where officials were specifically targeted with false fraud allegations by Trump and his allies. Nearly a quarter of those hostile messages suggested the targets should die." MB: This is a big file and I found the page hard to navigate. But the messages I did see were horrible and give a good idea about the warped mindsets of quite a few Trump backers.
Alaska. Brad Dress of the Hill: "Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy (R) on Thursday accepted the endorsement of former President Trump, which came on the condition the governor does not, in turn, endorse Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) in her reelection bid. Trump issued a statement Thursday evening saying that Dunleavy, who is running for a second term as governor, had accepted the endorsement. 'Please tell the president thank you for the endorsement,' Dunleavy said in the statement. 'With regard to the other issue, please tell the president he has nothing to worry about. I appreciate all 45 has done for Alaska and this country.'"
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David Sanger & Andrew Kramer of the New York Times: "President Vladimir V. Putin warned President Biden on Thursday that any economic sanctions imposed on Russia if it moves to take new military action against Ukraine could result in a 'complete rupture' of relations between the two nuclear superpowers, a Russian official told reporters on Thursday evening. The exchange came during a 50-minute phone call that Mr. Putin requested, and which both sides described as businesslike. Yet it ended without clarity about Mr. Putin's intentions.... Mr. Biden ... pushed back, according to two American officials. A terse White House statement said he 'made clear that the United States and its allies and partners will respond decisively if Russia further invades Ukraine.' American officials declined to discuss the substance of the discussion, insisting that, unlike the Russians, they would not negotiate in public. But it was clear that both sides were trying to shape the diplomatic landscape for talks that will begin in Geneva on Jan. 10, and then move to Brussels and Vienna later in the week in sessions that will include NATO allies and then Ukraine itself." ~~~
~~~ The AP's report is here. The White House's readout is an embargoed conversation with a "senior administration official." The White House said it would publish an updated readout later, attributed to Jen Psaki. As of midnight, the White House has not published (on its Website) the updated readout.
Margot Sanger-Katz of the New York Times: "For years, millions of Americans with medical emergencies could receive another nasty surprise: a bill from a doctor they did not choose and who did not accept their insurance. A law that goes into effect Saturday will make many such bills illegal. The change is the result of bipartisan legislation passed during the Trump administration and fine-tuned by the Biden administration. It is a major new consumer protection, covering nearly all emergency medical services, and most routine care.... Even with insurance, emergency medical care can still be expensive, and patients with high deductible plans could still face large medical bills. But the law will eliminate the risk that an out-of-network doctor or hospital will send an extra bill." The article provides some examples of how the new law could affect you.
AP: "The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol says the Supreme Court should let stand an appeals court ruling that the National Archives turn over documents from ... Donald Trump that might shed light on the events leading up to and including that day. In a filing with the court Thursday, lawyers for the committee argued that it is within its jurisdiction to seek the information. 'Although the facts are unprecedented, this case is not a difficult one,' the lawyers said in the filing, adding, 'This Court's review is unwarranted, and the petition for a writ of certiorari should be denied.'"
Still Longing for de Old Plantation. Brian Schwartz of CNBC: "A lawyer allied with ... Donald Trump hosted numerous conspiracy theorists looking to overturn the results of the 2020 election at his South Carolina plantations, he recently told CNBC. Lin Wood, a conservative trial lawyer who led a failed legal challenge against the election results in Georgia, said in a lengthy interview that shortly after the 2020 contest last November, he hosted at his massive South Carolina properties fellow right-wing attorney Sidney Powell, former Trump national security advisor Mike Flynn, former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne, and Doug Logan, the CEO of cybersecurity firm Cyber Ninjas.... Wood told CNBC that after the November election Powell asked him if she and her team could use his South Carolina property known as the Tomotley Plantation in order 'to do work on the election cases.' Wood reportedly bought the $7.9 million plantation last year." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Only Republicans -- and especially Trumpy Republicans -- would think it was a good idea to plot out a new civil war on an old South Carolina "plantation."
Michael Hayden of the Southern Poverty Law Center: "One year after Donald Trump's supporters stormed the Capitol in Washington D.C., the hard right, anti-democracy faction of the Republican base that led the attack threatens to overtake the party for the long term. This hard-right faction, loyal to former President Trump, minimizes, or supports, the violent storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6. They have worked to systemically undermine America's democracy in the months following the attack by installing into positions of power loyal proponents of Trump's Big Lie and by passing a flurry of voter suppression bills. The few Republicans who oppose Trump or acknowledge the wrong that he and others did on Jan. 6 face being ostracized. This group of Republicans also embrace lies and conspiracy theories to spin away what happened that day. Repeatedly, such high-profile Trump backers as Tucker Carlson have opted to further stoke the feelings of paranoia and bitterness that undergirded the attack...."
Sarah Nir, et al., of the New York Times: "A jury on Thursday ruled that an opioid manufacturer and distributor contributed to a public nuisance by inundating New York with pills that killed thousands of people. Teva Pharmaceuticals USA Inc. and a handful of its subsidiary companies were found liable in a sprawling, six-month trial that sought to reckon with the role that the pharmaceutical industry played in the opioid epidemic in two hard-hit New York counties and across the state. New York State was also determined to be partially responsible. The trial began in June and was argued jointly by New York State and Suffolk and Nassau counties. The case began with more than two dozen defendants, and was the first of its kind to target the entirety of the opioid supply chain: the pharmaceutical companies that manufactured pain pills, the distributors of the drugs and the pharmacy chains that filled the prescriptions." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Adam Klasfeld of Law & Crime: "The day after a federal jury convicted Ghislaine Maxwell of sex trafficking and other crimes, the government formally recommended disposing of the prosecution of two guards on duty the night of Jeffrey Epstein's death. Indicted in November 2019, Metropolitan Correctional Center guards Tova Noel and Michael Thomas each faced charges of falsifying records and conspiracy for their allegedly failing to perform numerous jail-wide checks on the night of Aug. 9, 2019 and early morning of Aug. 10, 2019. Noel and Thomas reached deferred prosecution agreements with prosecutors this past May. 'After a thorough investigation, and based on the facts of this case and the personal circumstances of the defendants, the Government has determined that the interests of justice will best be served by deferring prosecution in this District,' Assistant U.S. Attorney Jessica Lonergan announced earlier this year...."
Adam Klasfeld of Law & Crime: "Federal judges ordered the unsealing of a 2009 settlement agreement that Prince Andrew has claimed insulates him from a civil lawsuit accusing him of having sexually abused a 17-year-old girl. The ... deal, signed by the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and the prince's accuser Virginia Giuffre, is said to have shielded broad categories of Epstein's powerful associates, including 'royalty,' from civil liability.... In civil litigation, Prince Andrew and Professor Emeritus at Harvard Law School Alan Dershowitz cited the civil deal in an attempt to swat away claims by Giuffre, who accused both men of sexually abusing her. Dershowitz, a rival of Giuffre's lawyer David Boies, vehemently denied the allegations and countersued Giuffre for defamation. He has also sued Boies."
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Aina Kahn of the New York Times: "On Wednesday evening, BBC viewers heard from the American lawyer Alan M. Dershowitz about the guilty verdict in the case of Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted that day of helping the billionaire Jeffrey Epstein recruit, groom and sexually abuse underage girls. What they were not appraised of was that Mr. Dershowitz had helped defend Mr. Epstein and has himself been accused of abuse by one of Mr. Epstein's accusers -- an accusation he denies. The British broadcaster, which introduced Mr. Dershowitz as a 'constitutional lawyer,' said later in a statement released on Twitter that the interview did not meet its editorial standards: 'Mr. Dershowitz was not a suitable person to interview as an impartial analyst, and we did not make the relevant background clear to our audience,' the statement said. 'We will look into how this happened.'" The Guardian's story is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: In the most egregious part of the interview, "... Dershowitz said that Ms. Maxwell's trial undermined the credibility of [Virginia] Giuffre, and her case against Prince Andrew." Giuffre has accused Dershowitz of being one of Epstein's friends to whom she was offered as a sex partner, & she and Dershowitz have brought lawsuits -- still ongoing -- against each other. No mention of that! If the BBC team was too damned dumb to know of Dershowitz's huge conflict of interest, he had an ethical obligation to raise it himself. (I acknowledge that it's kind of wrong to even use "Dershowitz" & "ethical" in the same sentence.) You often hear people on U.S. TV do just that; as in, "I should reveal I worked on So-and-So's first presidential campaign."
The Pandemic, Ctd.
The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Friday are here.
Giulia Heyward & Sarah Cahalan of the New York Times: "With more than 580,000 cases, the United States shattered its own record for new daily coronavirus cases -- beating a milestone it already broke just the day before. Thursday's count, according to The New York Times's database, toppled the 488,000 new cases on Wednesday, which was nearly double the highest numbers from last winter. The back-to-back record-breaking days are a growing sign of the virus's fast spread and come as the world enters its third year of the pandemic. Hospitalizations and deaths, however, have not followed the same dramatic increase, further indication that the Omicron variant seems to be milder than Delta and causes fewer cases of severe illness. In the past two weeks, deaths are down by five percent, with a daily average of 1,221, while hospitalizations increased by just 15 percent to an average of 78,781 per day."
Abandon Ship! Marnie Hunter & Naomi Thomas of CNN: "The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday increased the risk level for cruise ship travel to its highest level and said it should be avoided, regardless of vaccination status. The agency bumped up the travel risk level for cruise travel from Level 3 to Level 4, indicating the risk for Covid-19 is 'very high.' The move 'reflects increases in cases onboard cruise ships since identification of the Omicron variant,' the CDC website says." The New York Times report is here. The CDC's release/warning is here.
Benjamin Mueller & Andrew Jacobs of the New York Times: "The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released two studies on Thursday that underscored the importance of vaccinating children against the coronavirus. One study found that serious problems among children 5 to 11 who had received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine were extremely rare. The other, which looked at hundreds of pediatric hospitalizations in six cities last summer, found that nearly all of the children who became seriously ill had not been fully vaccinated.... By Dec. 19, roughly six weeks into the campaign to vaccinate 5- to 11-year-olds, the C.D.C. said that it had received very few reports of serious problems.
Dan Diamond of the Washington Post: "The Food and Drug Administration is expected by early next week to authorize booster shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine for 12-to-15-year-olds, according to two people familiar with the FDA's plan.... The FDA decision would then be reviewed by vaccine advisers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and that agency's top official [-- Director Rochelle Walensky --] this week vowed to move quickly on recommending the booster shots if the advisers concurred with FDA." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "The Biden administration told the Supreme Court Thursday that federal law gives it the authority to impose a nationwide vaccine-or-testing requirement for large employers, and the court should not stand in the way of a program that will save thousands of lives.... The Supreme Court has announced a special hearing on Jan. 7 to consider challenges to the rules from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. It was upheld by a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit earlier this month, but is being challenged by a coalition of business groups and Republican-led states. Also that day, the high court will hear a similar challenge to a vaccine mandate imposed by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services; it requires shots for health-care workers at facilities that receive federal funds tied to those programs."
Ian Duncan of the Washington Post: "Amtrak said Thursday that it will reduce its schedule between New Year's Eve and Jan. 6 as it battles bad weather in some parts of the country and a surge in coronavirus cases among its employees. About two dozen trains on both its Northeast Corridor and long-distance routes will be affected."
Lee Hudson of Politico: "The Marine Corps announced Thursday that it has kicked out more troops for refusing the Covid-19 vaccine. The total number of discharges has risen to 206, up from 169 last week. The fiscal 2022 National Defense Authorization Act, which President Joe Biden signed into law Monday, dictates that the military services cannot dishonorably discharge members for vaccine refusal. The discharges must be either honorable or general under honorable conditions."
Ted Cruz Confuses Western Australia (WA) with Washington State (WA). John Wright of the Raw Story: "Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz apparently confused 'Western Australia' with 'Washington State' in an attempted attack on Democrats over COVID-19 restrictions on Wednesday night. [After an Australian official explained the government's ban on dancing on New Year's Eve, Cruz tweeted,] 'Blue-state Dems are power-drunk authoritarian kill-joys.'" There's a big world outside U.S. borders, Ted. Cancun, for instance. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Beyond the Beltway
Colorado. Azi Paybarah of the New York Times: "The 110-year prison sentence given to the driver of a truck involved in a 2019 crash that killed four people was reduced to 10 years by the governor of Colorado on Thursday. Gov. Jared Polis called the original sentence 'unjust' and 'disproportionate compared with many other inmates.'... He added, 'This case will hopefully spur an important conversation about sentencing laws' in the future.... In October, a jury found [Rogel] Aguilera-Mederos guilty on 27 counts, including vehicular homicide and vehicular assault. On Dec. 13, a district court judge, A. Bruce Jones, sentenced Mr. Aguilera-Mederos, then 26, to more than a century in prison, citing a Colorado state law that required sentences for each count to be served consecutively, rather than concurrently. The lengthy sentence drew immediate scrutiny, from people including the judge, who, Reuters reported, said, 'If I had the discretion, it would not be my sentence.' A petition calling for Mr. Aguilera-Mederos's sentence to be reduced quickly garnered millions of signatures."
News Ledes
New York Times: "It took only a few hours for the flames to cut an unimaginable path of destruction across the drought-starved neighborhoods between Denver and Boulder. By Friday morning, as smoke from the most damaging wildfire in state history cleared, more than 500 homes, and possibly as many as 1,000, had been destroyed. Hundreds of people who had hastily fled returned to ruins, everything they owned incinerated in the fast-moving blaze. Entire neighborhoods had been reduced to ashes.... Despite the astonishing destruction, no deaths were immediately recorded, a figure that Gov. Jared Polis said would be a 'New Year's miracle' if it held."
New York Times: "Television stars, comedians, a president and seemingly the entire internet paid tribute on Friday to Betty White, the actress whose trailblazing career spanned seven decades and who died on Friday at her home in Los Angeles." ~~~
~~~ New York Times: "Betty White, who created two of the most memorable characters in sitcom history, the nymphomaniacal Sue Ann Nivens on 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show' and the sweet but dim Rose Nylund on 'The Golden Girls' -- and who capped her long career with a comeback that included a triumphant appearance as the host of 'Saturday Night Live' at the age of 88 -- died on Friday. She was 99."
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Reader Comments (7)
The Golden Rule. It used to be "Do unto others as you would have
them do unto you." Quite a while ago that must have been changed
to "Do unto others and get on with it."
Actually, I think it must have been longer than I thought, since I
can remember being beat up in grade school because I had that
Texas accent when we arrived in Michigan. I soon lost that accent.
Forrest,
I seem to recall a variation on that rule that went something like “Do unto others before they do unto you”. I guess that was the Pyrite Rule. Wingers have their own version. “Do unto others, then blame them for it”. Trump’s variation is “Do unto others then sue their asses if they complain”. Lately there’s been another right wing modification: “Do unto others, then claim it was just a joke” which is a kind of two-fer. First, you get to insult the other party, then shit on them for not having a sense of humor.
Oh well, we have to put up with a lot of crap from the Trumpist horde, which, at this time of year, calls to mind a variation on a theme by Handel. “For unto us a horde is borne”. Not very Messianic, I admit. But what is these days?
Happy New Year to all. Let’s hope we’ll have less to bear this year, and avoid them doing more unto us.
The way I read Dunleavy's measured response to the Pretender's conditional endorsement, 45 got hosed.
@AK: The current version of the golden rule seems to be "Do unto others, then split".
There seems to be a perverse pride in cruelty.
Ken: Of course he got hosed ... he's a nozzle!
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Nozzle
On the eve of the last day in the 2021 year of catastrophe and corruption I learn that all of the eight family members sans one that we spent Christmas eve with have come down with Covid even though they all had been vaccinated and boostered. The symptoms were fevers, coughs, fatigue, and headaches. They held off letting us know as to not worry us and figured if we, too, has symptoms, we'd contact them. We then learn of the catastrophic fires in Colorado where people, in a flash, lose their homes and everything in it. An ending––of a year–- that has been like the Jimmy Webb's green icing melting in the rain kind of thing–-sticky, gummy, slimy goo penetrating into our every nook and cranny.
BUT––-I do wish you all the best–-"I'll drink a cup of kindness, dears" and hope like hell we survive 2022.
As far as the "Do unto others" business, according to Mark, Jesus didn't cotton to homilies but stressed more on the "saying ain't doing" kind of thing––something John Boy's father told him years ago.
P.D.
As a good friend said to his wife this morning when hearing for the first time of Anne's Covid bout (now seemingly over; no more than a mild cold; and I'm still testing negative--something I've so far ascribed to my bad attitude), "It's getting closer."
My daughter-in-law doc said last week that odds are we'll all eventually have it. She' likely right.
What we don't know is what version (present or future) we'll have.
What we do know is that vaccines work.
Wishing you and your Mister (and the entire RC crew) nothing but the best in the remaining hours of 2021 and in all of the dawning New Year.