January 29, 2023
Rebecca O'Brien of the New York Times: "Prosecutors say [Russian] oligarch [Oleg Deripaska] recruited one of the bureau's top spy catchers, just as he entered retirement, to carry out work that they say violated U.S. sanctions. The charges unsealed this week against Charles McGonigal -- who ran the counterintelligence unit at the bureau's New York field office and investigated Russian oligarchs, including Mr. Deripaska, according to the indictment -- showed the extent of the oligarch's reach into the highest levels of U.S. power." O'Brien attempts to establish how Deripaska turned McGonigal. Well, with money, of course.
Merrick Garland and FBI agents discuss developments in the classified documents scandal: ~~~
In other news: ~~~
Presidential Race 2024. Michael Bender & Mei-Ling McNamara of the New York Times: "More than two months after formally opening his White House comeback bid..., [Donald Trump] held his first two public events on Saturday. Both were the type of textbook campaign stops he mostly skipped in his first two runs for office. In New Hampshire, Mr. Trump spoke in a high school auditorium in Salem, where he addressed an annual state party meeting. In South Carolina, where he has previously attracted thousands to rallies, Mr. Trump introduced his state leadership team at the State Capitol.... Mr. Trump's attempt to drape himself with the trappings of a traditional campaign is an unspoken acknowledgment that he begins the race in one of the most politically vulnerable positions of his public life." MB: Of course his speeches were replete with his usual lies and grievances. CNN's report is here. ~~~
~~~ More Crazy After All These Years. Ken Bessinger & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "In September..., Donald J. Trump ... deliver[ed] what amounted to an unmistakable endorsement of the [QAnon] movement, which falsely and violently claims that leading Democrats are baby-eating devil worshipers. Even as the parent company of Facebook and Instagram announced this past week that Mr. Trump would be reinstated -- a move that followed the lifting of his ban from Twitter, though he has not yet returned -- there is no sign that he has curtailed his behavior or stopped spreading the kinds of messages that got him exiled in the first place. In fact, two years after he was banished from most mainstream social media sites for his role in inciting the Capitol riot, his online presence has grown only more extreme.... Since introducing his social media website in February 2022, Mr. Trump has shared hundreds of posts from accounts promoting QAnon ideas. He has continued to falsely insist that the 2020 election was stolen and that he is a victim of corrupt federal law enforcement agencies. And he has made personal attacks against his many perceived enemies, including private citizens whose names he has elevated."
Capitalism Is Awesome, Ctd. Rebecca Robbins of the New York Times: "Through its savvy but legal exploitation of the U.S. patent system, [the anti-inflammatory drug] Humira's manufacturer, AbbVie, blocked competitors from ... selling knockoffs. For the next six years, the drug's price kept rising. Today, Humira is the most lucrative franchise in pharmaceutical history. Next week, the curtain is expected to come down on a monopoly that has generated $114 billion in revenue for AbbVie just since the end of 2016. The knockoff drug that regulators authorized more than six years ago, Amgen's Amjevita, will come to market in the United States, and as many as nine more Humira competitors will follow this year from pharmaceutical giants including Pfizer. Prices are likely to tumble. The reason that it has taken so long to get to this point is a case study in how drug companies artificially prop up prices on their best-selling drugs.... The [AbbVie] strategy has been a gold mine for AbbVie, at the expense of patients and taxpayers."
Beyond the Beltway
Tennessee. Rick Rojas of the New York Times: "The Memphis Police Department said on Saturday that it had disbanded a specialized group known as the Scorpion unit after five of its officers were charged with second-degree murder in the death of Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man who was shown on video being kicked, struck and pepper-sprayed by those officers. Mr. Nichols's family and activists in the city had demanded that the Police Department dismantle the unit, which deployed officers to patrol higher-crime areas of the city and had drawn scorn in the communities it served even before Mr. Nichols's death this month."
Way Beyond
Czech Republic. Robert Tait of the Guardian: "Petr Pavel, a retired general and former senior Nato commander, has swept to the Czech presidency after a landslide victory over the former prime minister Andrej Babiš in an election overshadowed by rows over the war between Russia and Ukraine. With nearly all the votes counted, returns showed Pavel prevailing by the emphatic margin of 58.3% to 41.68%, the largest ever recorded in a Czech presidential poll and reflecting an advantage of more than 958,000 votes nationwide. Pavel's supporters immediately hailed the result as a victory for liberal democracy over oligarchic populism, which they believe Babiš represents."
Ukraine, et al. The Washington Post's live briefing of developments Sunday in Russia's war on Ukraine is here: "Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky renewed his plea for Western nations to supply Ukraine with more potent weapons, including the Army Tactical Missile System, known as ATACMS, to help Kyiv defend against Russian attacks from places far from the front line.... Kyiv has long argued that it needs the U.S.-made weapons to strike Russian targets in places such as Crimea.... Intense fighting continues on the front lines in eastern Ukraine, where Western and Ukrainian officials and military analysts have warned that Moscow is probably gearing up for a major offensive in the spring.... Germany and Poland are set to begin tank training programs for Ukrainian forces in days, as they rush deliveries for spring.... Ukraine's energy system remains under heavy strain." ~~~
~~~ The Guardian's live updates for Sunday are here. The Guardian's summary report is here.
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More properly last Friday's rant, delivered local time, but since today we're all together in prayer I'll call it a Sunday Sermon:
"We’ve seen this movie before.
In the first week of the 188th Congress, Republicans reintroduced the latest version of their old favorite, "The Fair Tax Act," to eliminate the IRS, all federal income and estate taxes and to replace them with a nationwide thirty percent sales tax (www.congress.gov). Not only is there serious doubt that such a tax would adequately fund the government, but it would also shift the nation’s’ tax burden further away from the wealthy (taxpolicycenter.org). Like sales taxes everywhere, by taking a bigger portion of their income from those who have less, and a smaller portion from those who have more, it would also escalate the economic inequality that is already corroding the foundations of our democracy.
Then there’s the Republican threat to default on the nation’s debt, which oddly enough occurs only when a Democrat is in the White House. As usual, they propose to hold Social Security and Medicare hostage in their “negotiations” (jec.senate.gov).
While how much national debt is too much is debatable, there’s little doubt Social Security and Medicare are not the culprits. Republicans know Social Security is self-financed and could be rendered hale and hearty for many future decades by collecting FICA taxes on incomes beyond the current $160,200 cap.
Republicans also know Medicare is the best healthcare deal around, in part due to its low administrative costs, which run at least ten percent lower than those of private insurance (politifact.com).
In the names of fairness and fiscal sanity, Republicans’ tax plans and their assault on Social Security and Medicare are not really about economics. They never have been.
They are about destroying successful non-profit government services, regardless of how many millions they hurt in the process.
I recently learned “coulrophobia,” means fear of clowns.
Seems I learned it just in time."
Strange Doings...Somebody's at war with somebody:
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/blast-heard-military-plant-irans-central-city-isfahan-state-media-2023-01-28/
Israel?
Ukraine?
or Iran with itself?
Here's a story that is uplifting : Women in South Korea are on strike against being "Baby Making Machines." They are not out on the streets protesting, they are LIVING it. Fed up with their country's treatment of family productivity and lack of services they are going it alone–-no sex, no babies, no maybes; the U.S. might want to copy their playbook.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/27/opinion/south-korea-fertility-rate-feminism.html
Ken: I fail to understand these clowns. Destroying important programs like Medicare and Social Security would be like taking away your right to own a home unless you were white, bright and Christian. Soon they might ban anything they felt was counter to their way of life. Shooting ones self in the foot has never been a good idea but evidently these clowns are going to do it.
I watched the Mark Twain awards on a rerun broadcast on our local PBS station. It originally aired this past June, and the recipient of the award was Jon Stewart.
First, I found out that the funniest person alive is Steve Carell. All of the performers had funny stories to tell, but Steve, whose stories weren't even quite as funny as some of the others, delivered his stories in a manner so hilarious I'm still laughing.
But my point here is not Carell. When Jon got up to accept his award, he deflated the so-called culture wars without specifically naming the phenomenon. It is not cultural signals in literature, paintings, even journalism and education that threaten our autonomy and freedom. It's authoritarianism.
Update: Just found the Carrell clip. See it above.
From a friend:
"Did you catch Jim Jordan's tweet about the liberals coming for our guns, gas cars and gas stoves?
Then there was this tweeted response, aimed toward Jordan and his fellow Rethuglicans:
'Hmm.
You came after Reproductive Rights.
Gay Marriage.
Black History.
Non-Christian Religious Freedom.
Voting Rights.
Public Education.
Net Neutrality.
Clean Air and Water.
Seriously, what the Hell are you gonna attack next while distracting people w “gas stoves?”
— Mat Pruneda (@Mat4Texas) January 28, 2023'"
Oh, thank you Marie for the clip–--bringing back that night of pure pleasure and so much laughter. I watched it when it was first aired and shed a few tears; to me Jon was the best–-is the best–--and I cherish all the years I watched him do his magic. And didn't you enjoy watching his lovely wife laugh? Happy to know he has such a loving family.
Ken,
My favorite answer to Gym Jordan’s fabricated outrages came from a guy who knows all about horror like the current moron laden controlling junta in the House, Stephen King.
Gym: They came for our guns!! Our gas stoves!! Our gas cars!! What’s next??!?
SK: You.
Too many darkies…
Gym Jordan, supporter of treason and sexual assault of minors, a crooked scumbag now in “charge” (*cough-cough*) of the House judiciary committee, in referring to the latest cop murder in Memphis sez it’s not about bad cops, it’s about the wrong people being hired as cops (ie, black guys).
It never matters. These pigs always find a way to make it all about race in support of white supremacy. Of course he also finds a way to blame the non-existent “defund the police” idea, but what he really means is “too many darkies”.
https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/3835092-jordan-says-there-are-not-enough-good-people-applying-to-be-police-officers/
And here’s the other thing about the latest cop murder. If anyone dares to protest this killing, the right will make it all about how horrible the left is to protest police activity, thereby absolving the cops of any wrongdoing. You just know this is going to happen. Fox will make it all about the evil protesters, not about the act that triggered them.
@Akhilleus: I have noticed quite a few teevee pundits being all thrilled about the fact that the police and prosecutor acted very quickly to fire five of the cops (allegedly!) responsible for Tyre Nichols' brutal murder and to bring 2nd-degree murder charges against them. (There may be charges coming against more cops and others who reported looked on and did nothing as the cops beat Nichols to death.)
But what the pundits don't seem to acknowledge is the fact that the perps here are Black. Do we think that if the (alleged !) murderers were white, there would have been such quick action on the part of all the officials? I'm mighty skeptical.
Although the Feds have brought charges against four officers involved in the murder of Breonna Taylor in 2020, as far as I can tell, the state has not charged any of the three officers who discharged their weapons for killing her. The state did bring charges against one of the officers for shooting up the neighbor's apartment. I'm just going to guess (and I may be wrong) that all those cops who got off were white.
Marie,
Yes. White. But forget about Breonna Taylor. The real victims here are the white cops who walked, not the innocent black woman they killed.
And guess who Republicans laud as heroes of that deadly raid?
The white cops.
Last week, the Republican Women’s Club of South Central Kentucky held a fund raising dinner. The guest of honor? Jonathan Mattingly, the cop who shot Taylor. Mattingly recently had a book published by some far right hack group which goes into great detail about his grievances and explains how everyone is out to get him just for killing some no ‘count black woman. The idea!
But to Republicans, he’s a hero. It doesn’t matter what they do, who they kill, or what elections they steal. They’re the victims.
https://spectrumnews1.com/ky/louisville/news/2023/01/18/controversial-dinner-did-take-place-
https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/local/breonna-taylor/2022/03/16/jonathan-mattingly-uses-breonna-taylor-book-to-air-grievances/7051455001/