January 24, 2022
Afternoon Update:
Robyn Dixon, et al., of the Washington Post: "The tense conflict over Ukraine shifted further into full crisis mode Monday, with NATO saying it was moving more military equipment into Eastern Europe and Russia continuing to build up massed forces along the border with Ukraine, amid fears that it will invade its neighbor.... Video surfaced on social media Monday showing Russian military convoys and trains with military equipment moving across southern Russia and Belarus. NATO said Monday that member nations would send additional ships and fighter jets to reinforce the alliance's eastern reaches, just as the Biden administration put 8,500 troops on heightened alert for a potential parallel deployment." An AP report is here.
Amy Wang & John Wagner of the Washington Post: "The Atlanta area prosecutor weighing whether ... Donald Trump and others committed crimes by trying to pressure Georgia election officials has been granted a special purpose grand jury to aid in her investigation. Fulton County Superior Court judges on Monday approved the request made last week by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and said Willis will be allowed to seat a special grand jury on May 2, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. The special grand jury can continue for a period 'not to exceed 12 months,' Christopher Brasher, chief judge of Fulton County Superior Court, wrote in an order." ~~~
~~~ Marie: So maybe no decision till late spring 2023? At least that will leave Herr Trump twisting slowly, slowly in the wind for a good long time.
Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: "Sarah Palin has tested positive for the coronavirus, forcing the delay of her defamation trial against The New York Times until next week. The trial, which was set to begin with jury selection on Monday morning, is now scheduled to start on Feb. 3." ~~~
~~~ Sarah Ellison of the Washington Post: "... U.S. District Court Judge Jed S. Rakoff told his Manhattan courtroom that he had learned Sunday night that Palin had tested positive on an initial test. 'She is, of course, unvaccinated,' he noted." ~~~
~~~ Lock Her Up! Priya Krishna of the New York Times: "Sarah Palin, who is not vaccinated against the coronavirus, dined indoors Saturday night at Elio's, an Italian restaurant on the Upper East Side of Manhattan that regularly draws celebrities, despite New York City's requirement that all indoor guests show proof of vaccination. She tested positive for the virus on Monday.... Shawn McCreesh, a features writer for New York Magazine, tweeted Saturday that he had spotted Ms. Palin at Elio's while out to dinner on Saturday night. ('My mom thought she was Tina Fey,' he wrote in a follow-up tweet.)"
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Helene Cooper & Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "President Biden is considering deploying several thousand U.S. troops, as well as warships and aircraft, to NATO allies in the Baltics and Eastern Europe, an expansion of American military involvement amid mounting fears of a Russian incursion into Ukraine, according to administration officials. The move would signal a major pivot for the Biden administration, which up until recently was taking a restrained stance on Ukraine, out of fear of provoking Russia into invading. But as President Vladimir V. Putin has ramped up his threatening actions toward Ukraine, and talks between American and Russian officials have failed to discourage him, the administration is now moving away from its do-not-provoke strategy. In a meeting on Saturday at Camp David..., senior Pentagon officials presented Mr. Biden with several options that would shift American military assets much closer to Mr. Putin's doorstep, the administration officials said." An NBC News story is here.
Ellen Nakashima & Jeanne Whelan of the Washington Post: "The Biden administration is threatening to use a novel export control to damage strategic Russian industries, from artificial intelligence and quantum computing to civilian aerospace, if Moscow invades Ukraine, administration officials say. The administration may also decide to apply the control more broadly in a way that would potentially deprive Russian citizens of some smartphones, tablets and video game consoles, said the officials."
John Hudson & Paul Sonne of the Washington Post: "The State Department ordered the departure of all family members of U.S. Embassy personnel serving in Kyiv on Sunday, citing the 'threat of Russian military action.' The department also told nonessential staff they can leave the country...." ~~~
~~~ Matthew Lee of the AP: "The [State D]epartment's travel advisory ... to Ukraine ... was changed Sunday to carry a stronger warning. 'Do not travel to Ukraine due to the increased threats of Russian military action and COVID-19....' The travel advisory for Russia was also changed: 'Do not travel to Russia due to ongoing tension along the border with Ukraine, the potential for harassment against U.S. citizens, the embassy's limited ability to assist U.S. citizens in Russia, COVID-19 and related entry restrictions, terrorism, harassment by Russian government security officials, and the arbitrary enforcement of local law.'"
Fiona Hill in a New York Times op-ed: Vladimir "Putin ... wants to evict the United States from Europe.... He believes that the United States is currently in the same predicament as Russia was after the Soviet collapse: grievously weakened at home and in retreat abroad.... America's domestic travails after four years of ... Donald Trump's disastrous presidency, as well as the rifts he created with U.S. allies and then America's precipitous withdrawal from Afghanistan, signal weakness.... Ukraine is both Russia's target and a source of leverage against the United States.... Mr. Putin plays a [long], strategic game and knows how to prevail in the tactical scrum.... Forging a united front with its European allies and rallying broader support should be America's longer game. Otherwise this saga could indeed mark the beginning of the end of America's military presence in Europe." MB: The op-ed seems to be a letter to Joe Biden.
It's About Time. Paula Span of the New York Times: "Challenging the policy that limited survivor's benefits to married couples took years and a class-action lawsuit.... In November, the [Social Security Administration] dropped its Trump-era appeals against Thornton v. Commissioner of Social Security and Ely v. Saul, two federal lawsuits brought by surviving same-sex partners or spouses. The Social Security Administration now allows gay men and lesbians to receive survivor's benefits if they can show that they were in a committed relationship and would have married had that been possible."
I Love Bernie. Martin Pengelly of the Guardian: "Bernie Sanders on Sunday sought to turn fire aimed by Democrats at two of their own, Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin, onto Republican senators he said were 'pushing an anti-democratic agenda'. 'Republicans are laughing all the way to election day,' the Vermont senator told CNN's State of the Union. 'They have not had to cast one bloody vote which shows us where they're at.' But the Vermont progressive also confirmed that he will campaign against Manchin and Sinema, both Democrats, should they face viable primary challengers."
Amy Wang & Tom Hamburger of the Washington Post: "Former attorney general William P. Barr has spoken with the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection, the committee chairman [Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.)] said Sunday.... Barr had been closely allied with Trump through most of his tenure at the Department of Justice but resigned in December 2020 after publicly disputing claims of widespread election fraud." An NBC News story is here.
Devlin Barrett & Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post: "Within days of ... Donald Trump's election defeat, [Oath Keepers founder] Stewart Rhodes began talking about the Insurrection Act as critical to the country's future.... Invoking the Insurrection Act was an idea sparked in conservative circles [in the] spring [of 2020] as a means of subduing social justice protests and related rioting, a goal Trump seemed to embrace..., and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) penned a New York Times opinion piece urging the law's use.... Trump didn't let it go, declaring later that summer that he was still considering it..... By the end of the year, it had become a rallying cry to cancel the results of a presidential election.... 'It is hard to put into words how mind-boggling this idea was, to use a statute designed to protect the country from insurrection to support an actual insurrection,' said Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University at San Bernardino.... Trump's public flirtation with the Insurrection Act fit into what Levin said was a longer, disturbing trend among far-right extremists who oppose the government." ~~~
~~~ Marie: No doubt his "flirtation" with the Insurrection Act is why Trump has said repeatedly that that the "real insurrection" occurred on Election Day 2020.
Sarah Burris of the Raw Story: "A series of emails expose an Arizona effort to retroactively hand the 2020 Arizona election to Donald Trump, even though the GOP's own audit showed he lost. According to Rolling Stone, 'the technology was complicated, but the plan was simple: Scan mail-in and absentee ballots in populous Maricopa County, remove the 'invalid votes,' and recertify the state's 2020 election count, surely declaring then-President Donald Trump the rightful winner....' 'The emails also reveal that several Trump advisers, including campaign lawyer Jenna Ellis and legal adviser Bernie Kerik, were included in the discussion.'... Those also linked to the conspiracy, according to the emails, include Reince Priebus, the former Republican Party chair and Trump White House chief of staff, as well as Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani.... One of those involved in the overthrow attempt, Mark Finchem, is running to take over the elections in Arizona" ~~~
~~~ Marie: Since I don't have access to the Rolling Stone article, I'm a little unsure if the emails provide evidence that the conspirators planned to manipulate/rig the Maricopa County vote totals. If they planned to fraudulently & substantially reduce the county's vote totals or switch ballots from Biden to Trump, then this is a big deal. (Maricopa County voted 50.3% for Biden & 48.1 for Trump.) However, if this was just the usual claim that Trump won Maricopa county & another recount would prove it, then there's not much here. We'll see if other news outlets pick up the story. Also, Mark Finchem, a state house representative & Oath Keeper, is running for Arizona secretary of state.
Josh Gerstein of Politico: Sarah "Palin is set to take on the colossus of the establishment press, The New York Times, in a libel suit she filed over a 2017 editorial that erroneously linked her political activities to the 2011 shooting attack in Tucson, Ariz., that left six people dead and Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) badly wounded. Within a day, the Times corrected the editorial and noted that no connection was ever established between the rampage and a map that Palin's political action committee circulated with crosshairs superimposed on the districts of 20 Democrats, including Giffords. The Times also acknowledged it erred by suggesting that the crosshairs appeared over images of the candidates themselves. But less than two weeks after the errant editorial ran, Palin filed suit against the Times, accusing the news outlet of defaming her. After years of litigation, as well as delays because of the coronavirus pandemic, a trial in Palin's suit is scheduled to begin with jury selection on Monday in federal court in New York City. Some media advocates say the fact that the case is going to trial at all is a sign that almost a half-century of deference to the press in the courts is giving way to a more challenging legal landscape for journalists, media companies and their attorneys." ~~~
~~~ Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: "When Donald J. Trump called for scrapping laws that offer the news media broad protection from libel suits -- 'We're going to have people sue you like you've never got sued before,' he said in 2016 as he was running for president -- many journalists and the lawyers who defend them brushed it off as an empty threat. But a libel case that begins Monday in federal court in Lower Manhattan, Sarah Palin v. The New York Times Company, shines a spotlight on the many ways that Mr. Trump's seemingly far-fetched wish may no longer be so unthinkable.... Most libel suits against The Times are dismissed before they ever reach a jury, making this case particularly uncommon. Though defenders of broad First Amendment protections for the media have said Ms. Palin's evidence is weak, they also acknowledged that a jury could decide otherwise."
Hiroko Tabuchi of the New York Times: "Research has shown that lower-end retailers like dollar stores or convenience shops still extensively stock their shelves with traditional or halogen incandescent bulbs, even as stores serving more affluent communities have shifted to selling far more efficient LEDs. One Michigan study, for instance, found that not only were LED bulbs less available in poorer areas, they also tended to cost on average $2.50 more per bulb than in wealthier communities. The continued prevalence of incandescent bulbs in the United States is one result of a successful effort during the Trump presidency, by an industry group representing the world's biggest light-bulb makers, to stall energy efficiency standards in the United States.... In its corporate reports, Signify ... -- ... the Dutch multinational that makes Phillips light bulbs -- ... has called extracting value from its conventional lighting a 'cash engine' for the company." MB: So one more way big corporations exploit the poor.
The Pandemic, Ctd.
The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Monday are here. The Washington Post's live Covid-19 updates are here.
This Too Shall Pass. Mitch Smith, et al., of the New York Times: "New coronavirus cases have started to fall nationally, signaling that the Omicron-fueled spike that has infected tens of millions of Americans, packed hospitals and shattered records has finally begun to relent. More and more states have passed a peak in new cases in recent days, as glimmers of progress have spread from a handful of eastern cities to much of the country. Through Friday, the country was averaging about 720,000 new cases a day, down from about 807,000 last week. New coronavirus hospital admissions have leveled off."
Katie Mettler, et al., of the Washington Post: "Thousands of protesters from across the country -- including some of the biggest names in the anti-vaccination movement -- descended on the nation's capital Sunday for a rally against vaccine mandates.... A crowd of demonstrators, many unmasked, [decried] vaccine mandates in the middle of a city that has adopted mask and vaccine mandates to reduce sickness and death from the surge of the virus's omicron variant, which has battered D.C. for weeks." ~~~
~~~ Bobby Kennedy, Jr. Is a Colossal Ass. Sarah Fortinsky & Aileen Graef of CNN: "At a rally against vaccine mandates in Washington, DC, on Sunday, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. likened vaccine policies in the US to the actions of a totalitarian state, even suggesting Anne Frank was in a better situation when she was hiding from the Nazis. 'Even in Hitler Germany (sic), you could, you could cross the Alps into Switzerland. You could hide in an attic, like Anne Frank did,' said Kennedy, a prominent anti-vaccine advocate, in a speech at the Lincoln Memorial. 'I visited, in 1962, East Germany with my father and met people who had climbed the wall and escaped, so it was possible. Many died, true, but it was possible.'... The Auschwitz Memorial responded to Kennedy in a statement on Twitter, saying, 'Exploiting of the tragedy of people who suffered, were humiliated, tortured & murdered by the totalitarian regime of Nazi Germany - including children like Anne Frank - in a debate about vaccines & limitations during global pandemic is a sad symptom of moral & intellectual decay.'" ~~~
~~~ Marie: Yes, why didn't the Frank family just skip over the Alps from Amsterdam to Switzerland? It would have entailed a hike of a mere 535 miles, all of it through Nazi-occupied territory. If Trump is looking for a Kennedy to put on his 2024 ticket, instead of choosing a dead one, may I suggest Bobby Jr.?
The Inherent Tyranny of Wealth. Stephanie Nolen of the New York Times: "Canada is among numerous wealthy nations, including the United States and United Kingdom, that are aggressively recruiting medical workers from the developing world to replenish a health care work force drastically depleted by the Covid-19 pandemic. The urgency and strong pull from high-income nations -- including countries like Germany and Finland, which had not previously recruited health workers from abroad -- has upended migration patterns and raised new questions about the ethics of recruitment from countries with weak health systems during a pandemic.... About 1,000 nurses are arriving in the United States each month from African nations, the Philippines and the Caribbean, said Sinead Carbery, president of O'Grady Peyton International, an international recruiting firm."
Washington State. Sopan Deb of the New York Times: "John Stockton, one of the most celebrated basketball players in history, is barred from attending games at his alma mater, Gonzaga University, because of an unwillingness to comply with the school's mask mandate. Stockton revealed that his season tickets were revoked in an interview with The Spokesman Review published on Sunday." See also Ken W.'s commentary below.
Beyond the Beltway
Florida. Giulia Heyward & Patricia Mazzei of the New York Times: "The former president of Florida International University in Miami revealed the reasons for his sudden resignation last week: He said that he had 'caused discomfort for a valued employee.' In a newly released statement on Sunday, the former president, Mark B. Rosenberg, said that caring for his wife, who has advanced dementia and diabetes, hurt his own mental health.... But according to two people close to the administration, [an] investigation began around mid-December when a young female employee told another colleague about Dr. Rosenberg's inappropriate behavior. The university hired an outside lawyer, Eric D. Isicoff, to investigate. That investigation is ongoing. Last week, the woman sat down for an interview, and the counsel obtained text messages showing communications between her and Dr. Rosenberg.&" ~~~
~~~ Marie: Presumably the "discomfort" Rosenberg caused is not precisely the same sort of "discomfort" that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and his legislative cohort worry white students will feel if they are forced to learn about the history & effects of racial discrimination. Anyhow, it's great to learn that as early as January Florida already has made "discomfort" a contender for the Word of the Year.
Michigan. Neil MacFarquhar of the New York Times on the very messy case against the domestic terrorists who plotted to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer because of the Covid-19 lockdown measures she imposed in 2020." If you have a NYT subscription, worth reading, especially if you're a screenwriter looking for the bones of a thriller plot.
Michigan. A Lede the Likes of Which You Thought You Would Never, Ever See in the New York Times. Isabella Paz: "It started with a comment at a school board meeting, which was later amplified by a Michigan state Republican leader, and culminated with a school superintendent explaining that, no, there were no litter boxes on school grounds for students to use if they identified as furries." The following, however, you might have expected, given what you known about Republican "leaders": "Kids who identify as '"furries" get a litter box in the school bathroom,' [Meshawn] Maddock[, a chairwoman of the Michigan Republican Party,] wrote in a Facebook post sharing the video of [a Michigan school] board meeting. 'Parent heroes will TAKE BACK our schools.'" Thanks to Patrick for the link. See also his comment in yesterday's thread.
New York. Jaclyn Peiser of the Washington Post: How a Long Island grandmother foiled a telephone scammer. She "inviting [the scammer] to pick up the cash from her house. But it was a setup, and moments after Jean handed over an envelope stuffed with paper towels, police tackled the man to the ground."
Virginia. Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "The top staff investigator on the House committee scrutinizing the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol has been fired by [Virginia]'s new Republican attorney general from his position as the top lawyer for the University of Virginia, from which he was on leave while working on the congressional inquiry. The office of the attorney general, Jason S. Miyares, said the firing of the investigator, Timothy J. Heaphy, was not related to the Jan. 6 investigation, but the move prompted an outcry from Democrats in the state, who accused him of taking the highly unusual action as a partisan move to further ... Donald J. Trump's attempts to undermine the committee's work. 'This is purely payback for Jan. 6 -- there is no other reason that makes any sense,' said Scott Surovell, a top Democrat in the Virginia State Senate, who said that he knew of no other similar example in recent history where a new attorney general had immediately removed a school's top lawyer. 'In our state, we normally leave those decisions to the school's board of visitors and president.'... In addition to dismissing Mr. Heaphy, Mr. Miyares also had the top lawyer at George Mason University removed.... The posts are typically held by career lawyers who are rarely replaced when new attorneys general take over.... The University of Virginia ... made clear that it had no role in [Heaphy's firing]."
Way Beyond
Burkina Faso. Danielle Paquette of the Washington Post: "Mutinous soldiers have detained the president of Burkina Faso after gunfire erupted at military bases across the West African nation in an apparent coup d’etat, making him the third head of state overthrown in this region in the past eight months, according to a Western official and an army officer in the country. Authorities initially denied that President Roch Marc Kaboré was taken into military custody, asserting that all was calm even as soldiers battled for control of several barracks. Then the mutineers reached the presidential palace late Sunday, Reuters reported, and Kaboré was physically removed from office less than 24 hours after the uprising began, said the Western official...."
Ireland/Russia, etc. Lorne Cook of the AP: "NATO said Monday that it's putting extra forces on standby and sending more ships and fighter jets to eastern Europe, as Ireland warned that new Russian war games off its coast are not welcome given tensions over whether President Vladimir Putin intends to attack Ukraine. The U.S.-led military organization said that it is beefing up its 'deterrence' presence in the Baltic Sea area. Denmark is sending a frigate and deploying F-16 war planes to Lithuania; Spain will also send warships and could send fighter jets to Bulgaria; and France stands ready to send troops to Romania. Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said NATO will 'take all necessary measures to protect and defend all allies.'"
U.K. Megan Specia of the New York Times: "A British court ruled on Monday that the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange can appeal a decision that would allow for his extradition to the United States, where he would face charges under the Espionage Act in connection with obtaining and publishing secret government documents. The latest twist in the long-running case comes after a decision last month that Mr. Assange could be extradited, a reversal of a lower-court decision in a legal battle that has turned on whether prison conditions in the United States during his detention would be too harsh for his mental health."
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Reader Comments (13)
What if I identified as a monkey rather than a "furrie"? Would I be able to fling my feces at others rather than deposit them in a litterbox or toilet?
@unwashed: Not without blowback from concerned parents & outraged Republican "leaders."
Sports Report:
Sent to me by my doctor son, who in his high school and college years could play a little basketball himself.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/01/23/john-stockton-gonzaga-mask-mandate
My comment:
Guess if you can dribble, pass, shoot and steal better than most, that makes you an expert on vaccines, too.
Maybe a little Kennedy Catholic lunacy in there, too….
Funny too that someone who rose to the top of his profession on the basis of his accumulated numbers can still blithely ignore all the statistics he doesn’t like.
Stock market tip: Purina Mfg. Litter boxes, scoops and snacks for
furries. They'll be selling millions all over the country.
If I donate my old litter box to the local school can I take a tax
deduction? (My cat died 2 years ago).
On second thought, I use it to carry LP records down from storage
upstairs. Anytime youngsters are visiting they're fascinated with
this "new technology."
More MI: Meshawn Maddock, the (R) lady who said that hero parents in MI would take back the schools from the depradations of such abominations as "furries," is also the very same Meshawn Maddock who was instrumental in developing and submitting the fake substitute (R) MI elector ballots for the presidential election in 2020. At the behest of "the Tr*mp Campaign", according to her recorded words.
Not only will she believe anything she's told, she'll do anything the R politburo tells her to do. And when she gets sentenced for election fraud (MI's AG is working on it), she'll claim she was led down the garden path by bad people taking advantage of her trusting, gullible nature.
And what kind of name is "Meshawn" anyway?
I heard that they are switching out desks with trees in the classrooms for all the kids identifying as monkeys. The local arboretum is almost empty.
@Patrick: Her children are named Himshawn & Hershawn & Hertooshawn. In fact, Meshawn seems to be a real name with multiple spellings. I think I'd go with "Michon."
Does it strike anyone else what colossal bed-fellows politics makes: with Bobby Kennedy in bed with Stockton, Noem? Sheesh. Aging ugly can strike anyone, anytime...with preference to those unwilling to listen to those who are younger. And epidemiologists.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/01/23/confederate-heritage-groups-are-keeping-lost-cause-life-support/. One comment: All too many right-wingers think it makes sense to claim to be an "American Patriot," while loving the Confederacy too. The media seem okay with this dangerous absurdity." This dovetails neatly with Americans throwing feces at eat other while Putin hastens American withdrawl from Europe. Someone in the Kremlin is laughing really hard at our expense.
The Heaphy firing is just the first step in Republicans' dreams of punishing those who go after Dear Leader. Gingrich told Fox yesterday that the Jan. 6 investigators should be jailed.
It also plays into their ideas of their new voter fraud police. Though I would love to see their fraud police arresting them as they yell "You can't do this to me. I created you. You were only built to arrest Democrats. It's okay to do it if you are a Republican because we're real Americans. My Proud Boys will come save me."
Marie,
Under a slightly different spelling, “Michonne” is a character from “The Walking Dead” who specializes in cutting off heads with a katana. Maybe her next job for Republicans will be decapitating members of the Jan. 6 committee. Gingrich would love it.
At the dentist so can't post. WashPo: Palin's trial postponed because she has Covid.
Her lawyerThe judge says "she's not vaccinated, of course."Adding to the Fiona Hill piece. @emptywheel posted several tweets with maps today. Her warning: "Russia has alerted Ireland that they plan war games off of Ireland's coast--in what appears to be waters above the most important cable landings in the world"
Damage to these cables can be disastrous to instant communication abilities betw Europe and the US. War games planned for early in Feb.
I come down on the side of Meshawn's parents having no idea how to spell the name, having heard it on the radio years ago... Daughter works for an insurance outfit and you cannot believe the names she hears every day. Even if people know the "common" spelling of names, they think they are being clever or different, and the kid is stuck spelling his or her name forever. I grew up having to spell both names, and yet today, I get called Jeannie, Janine, Jean-Anne and so forth. Basically, people are not well-read, or very bright. I must discuss this with my friend Michon...