November 9, 2021
Late Morning Update:
Katharine Seelye of the New York Times: "Max Cleland, who lost both legs and an arm during the Vietnam War and who became a Senator from Georgia, only to lose his seat after Republicans impugned his patriotism, died on Tuesday at his home in Atlanta. He was 79. The cause was congestive heart failure, said ... a close friend. After a grenade accident in Vietnam in 1968, Mr. Cleland spent 18 months recuperating. He served in local politics in his native Georgia and as head of the federal Veterans Administration, now the Department of Veterans Affairs, before he was elected in 1996 to the U.S. Senate. But it was his treatment at the hands of Republicans while he was seeking re-election in 2002 that made him a Democratic cause célèbre. Running for another term just a year after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, he was the target of an infamous 30-second television spot that showed images of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein while it questioned Mr. Cleland's commitment to homeland security and implied that he was soft on the war on terror.... Even prominent Republicans, including Senators John McCain and Chuck Hagel, both Vietnam veterans, were outraged."
Paul LeBlanc of CNN: "Republican Rep. Fred Upton on Monday shared a threatening voicemail he had received after voting for the bipartisan infrastructure bill last week. In the voicemail, which Upton played during an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper..., a caller told the Michigan Republican: 'I hope you die. I hope everybody in your f**king family dies,' while labeling him a 'f**king piece of sh*t traitor.'Upton was one of just 13 House Republicans who voted with Democrats on Friday to pass the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill.... Upton's office said the voicemail was not an isolated incident. The calls came after GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia tweeted the phone numbers of those who had voted for the bill and later called them traitors."
Rebecca Shabad of NBC News: "A federal judge on Monday shot down a request from ... Donald Trump to prevent the National Archives from releasing documents requested by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Trump filed a lawsuit last month to block the records but that case is still ongoing. Trump filed an emergency motion late Monday, asking Judge Tanya S. Chutkan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to grant a stay in the case pending appeal or an administrative injunction. Chutkan, however, quickly denied the request on Tuesday, calling the move 'premature.'"
The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Tuesday are here: "Pfizer and BioNTech are expected on Tuesday to ask federal regulators to expand authorization of its coronavirus booster shot to include all adults.... The Food and Drug Administration is considered likely to grant the request, perhaps before Thanksgiving." ~~~
~~~ The Washington Post's live Covid-19 updates for Tuesday are here: "A federal court has ruled that United Airlines can put employees who are unvaccinated against the coronavirus on unpaid leave, even if the workers had received medical or religious exemptions from the company, according to Leslie Scott, a spokeswoman for the carrier. The Monday ruling allows the airline to proceed with enforcing the mandate, which doesn't allow unvaccinated employees to submit to regular testing in lieu of getting vaccinated. About 2,000 workers have received medical or religious exemptions, Scott said. They will be offered non-customer-facing roles, and those who don't accept will be put on leave, she said."
New Hampshire. John Wagner of the Washington Post: "New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R) announced Tuesday that he would seek reelection to a fourth term, rebuffing overtures from GOP leaders in Washington, who have urged him to seek a U.S. Senate seat and help the party retake control of the chamber. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), among others, had sought to persuade Sununu to challenge Sen. Maggie Hassan (D) in a state that represents one of the Republican Party’s best chances for a pickup next year." CNN's story is here.
Karla Adam & Harry Stevens of the Washington Post: "The largest delegation at the COP26 climate summit does not belong to the United States, which is trying hard to reinstate itself as a climate leader, or to the United Kingdom, the host nation that pulled out the stops by adding Prince William and David Attenborough to its list of delegates. The prize for largest delegation went to the fossil fuel industry, which, as a whole, sent more delegates than any single country, according to the advocacy group Global Witness. Climate activist Greta Thunberg ... tweeted, 'I don't know about you, but I sure am not comfortable with having some of the world's biggest villains influencing & dictating the fate of the world.'"
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Jim Sciutto & Natasha Bertrand of CNN: "CIA Director Bill Burns held a rare conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow last week, to convey 'serious' US concerns about Russia's military buildup along the Ukrainian border and to attempt to determine Russian intentions, two sources with direct knowledge told CNN.... 'Of course, cybersecurity issues were also mentioned,' [Putin spokesman Dimitry] Peskov added." (Also linked yesterday.)
Luz Lazo of the Washington Post: "The $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill that passed the House on Friday is expected to spur the largest expansion in Amtrak's history while kick-starting repair and replacement projects across the nation's passenger rail network. The bill includes $66 billion in new funding for rail to address Amtrak's repair backlog, improve stations, replace old trains and create a path to modernize the Washington-to-Boston corridor, the nation's busiest. It would be the biggest boost of federal aid to Amtrak since Congress created it half a century ago.... It could also help bring passenger service to new cities and towns across the nation."
Jeff Cox of CNBC: "Federal Reserve Governor Randal Quarles said he is stepping down from his post around the end of the year, an announcement that comes a little over a month after ending his run as the Fed's supervisor of the banking system.... Quarles was named to the board in October 2017 to fill a term that expired the following year. He subsequently was reappointed to a term that would have ran out in 2032. In recent weeks, he has become a lightning rod for criticism from some of the more progressive congressional leaders. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has been one of the more vocal critics, faulting Quarles and Fed Chairman Jerome Powell for loosening the regulations that were put in place following the financial crisis.... With Quarles' resignation and the expiration of Federal Open Market Committee Vice Chairman Richard Clarida's term on Jan. 31, 2022, [President] Biden will have the opportunity to remake the Fed."
Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol issued new subpoenas on Monday for a half-dozen allies of ... Donald J. Trump, including his former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn, as it moved its focus to an orchestrated effort to overturn the 2020 election. The subpoenas reflect an effort to go beyond the events of the Capitol riot and delve deeper into what committee investigators believe gave rise to it: a concerted campaign by Mr. Trump and his network of advisers to promote false claims of voter fraud as a way to keep him in power. One of the people summoned on Monday was John Eastman, a lawyer who drafted a memo laying out how Mr. Trump could use the vice president and Congress to try to invalidate the election results." Also subpoenaed Monday were Bernard Kerik, Bill Stepian, Jason Miller & Angela McCallum. ~~~
~~~ Betsy Swan & Kyle Cheney of Politico: "The Jan. 6 Committee is homing in on the top actors linked to Donald Trump's last-ditch attempt to overturn the 2020 election, newly subpoenaing campaign employees and allies linked to the infamous 'war room' that was used to strategize how to reverse the election results."
** Blueprint for a Coup. Christian Vanderbroux of the Bulwark: "... in mid-October 2020 ... the Claremont Institute and Texas Public Policy Foundation's (TPPF) [published a report] called '79 Days to Inauguration,' prepared by 'Constitutional scholars, along with experts in election law, foreign affairs, law enforcement, and media ... coordinated by a retired military officer experienced in running hundreds of wargames.' Among these luminaries were figures such as John Eastman -- lawyer for Donald Trump and author of a memo advising Vice President Mike Pence to unilaterally block certification of Joe Biden's win in order to buy time for GOP-controlled state legislatures to send competing slates of electors -- and K.T. McFarland, who served as deputy national security advisor under Michael Flynn in the Trump White House. Other participants include Kevin Roberts, then-executive director of the Texas Public Policy Foundation (soon to be head of the Heritage Foundation), Jeff Giesea, 'a [Peter] Thiel protégé and secret funder of alt-right causes,' and Charles Haywood, a fringe blogger who anxiously awaits an American 'Caesar, authoritarian reconstructor of our institutions.' Yet despite the authors' pretensions to scholarship and rigor -- 'for a simulation to be valuable, the other side gets a vote and actions must be based in realism' -- the final document is a frenzied and paranoid piece of work, revealing of the anxieties and aspirations of the authoritarian right. Practically, the report is an instruction manual for how Trump partisans at all levels of government -- aided by citizen 'posses' of Proud Boys and Oath Keepers -- could, quite literally, round up opposition activists, kill their leaders, and install Donald Trump for a second term in office." ~~~
~~~ Marie: The fact that this "report" was conceived & printed even before the election demonstrates that the January 6 coup attempt was not a spontaneous uprising in response to a few incendiary speeches in January but a long-anticipated, multi-faceted plot to overturn a democratic election, should the election results warrant it.
Cashing In on Holding Out. David Corn of Mother Jones: "Over the past few weeks, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) has been involved in some of the most intense Capitol Hill negotiations of recent years.... Yet during this hectic and stressful stretch, Manchin has found the time to pursue a side project: a book deal. In between negotiating sessions that have raised his profile in Washington and across the nation, Manchin has held multiple conversations regarding this book project, according to people with knowledge of this endeavor. And the project has reached the stage of a book proposal being drafted.... Manchin has had multiple conversations with agents and has discussed a possible collaborator [MB: i.e., someone to ghost-write the book], according to people with knowledge of this project."
Michael Kranish of the Washington Post takes a look at Mitch McConnell's long, unprincipled political career. (Also linked yesterday.)
Rick Scott Is Neutral on Spousal Strangulation. John Wagner of the Washington Post: "Sen. Rick Scott, who heads the group that works to elect Senate Republicans, declined Monday to say whether Sean Parnell, a GOP hopeful in Pennsylvania who has been accused of strangling his wife and abusing his children, is the right candidate for the job.... Scott maintained that in his role as NRSC chairman he should remain neutral in primaries, except in the cases of GOP incumbents." MB: Donald Trump has endorsed Parnell ... maybe because strangulation, I don't know. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Daniel Dale of CNN: "A new national television ad from House Republicans' campaign arm deceptively uses images of events that occurred during ... Donald Trump's time in office to attack President Joe Biden's tenure. The 30-second ad from the National Republican Congressional Committee, titled "Chaos," begins with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi predicting 'bold progress for the people when we have President Joe Biden in the White House.' It then contrasts Pelosi's words with a rapid-fire series of photos and videos depicting scenes of violence and tumult in the US and abroad.... Nowhere does the ad offer any indication that the images from 2020 are not from Biden's presidency."
Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: "Rep. Paul A. Gosar (R-Ariz.) shared an altered, animated video that depicts him killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and swinging two swords at President Biden, prompting condemnation and calls for his Twitter and Instagram accounts to be suspended. Ocasio-Cortez responded Monday night after arriving in Glasgow, Scotland, as part of a congressional delegation. Gosar, she said, will probably 'face no consequences' because House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) 'cheers him on with excuses.'... A Twitter spokesperson said late Monday that a 'public interest notice' had been placed on Gosar's tweet because it violates the company's policy against hateful conduct." The AP has a brief report here. MB: The House should at least censure Gosar, if they can't think up anything more harsh to do. And I don't think they need Kevin's permission to do so.
"Goodbye, America." Isabelle Khurshudyan & Mary Ilyushina of the Washington Post: "A man who allegedly participated in the Capitol riot on Jan. 6 and is wanted by the FBI is now seeking asylum in Belarus, the country's state media reported Monday, presenting him as a 'simple American whose shops were burned by Black Lives Matter activists.' Evan Neumann, who appears to have sat down for an interview with Belarusian state television in a segment entitled 'Goodbye, America,' is wanted in the United States on charges of violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds, as well as for assaulting, resisting and obstructing law enforcement during civil disorder.... But Neumann could be welcomed in Belarus as part of the regime's anti-Western propaganda." (Also linked yesterday.)
Jessica Gresko of the AP: "The Supreme Court is to hear arguments in a case about whether Texas must allow a chaplain to pray audibly and touch a prisoner during an execution. Executions in Texas, the nation's busiest death penalty state, have been delayed while the court considers the question. The outcome won't take anyone off death row but could make clear what religious accommodations officials must make for inmates who are being put to death. The case before the justices involves John Henry Ramirez, who is on death row for killing a Corpus Christi convenience store worker during a 2004 robbery. Ramirez stabbed the man, Pablo Castro, 29 times and robbed him of $1.25."
The Washington Post live-updated developments Monday at the COP26 conference in Glasgow: "In a 44-minute speech in Glasgow, [former U.S. President Barack] Obama affirmed that 'the U.S. is back' at the negotiating table after four years of 'a lack of leadership.' He urged young people to be hopeful in the face of cynicism and despair, and he criticized China, Russia, the Republican Party and the administration of ... Donald Trump for their relative inattention to an 'existential' problem.... Midway through his speech to the U.N. climate summit..., Obama took a shot at Republicans, saying many GOP lawmakers have rejected the overwhelming scientific consensus on global warming. 'One of our two major parties has decided not only to sit on the sidelines, but express active hostility toward climate science and make climate change a partisan issue,' Obama said. He added for his international audience: 'Perhaps some of you have similar a dynamic in your own countries, although, generally speaking, the United States seems to have a more vigorous opposition to climate than in many other places.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ A CNN report on President Obama's Glasgow speech is here. The U.N.'s Youtube video of the speech is here. (Also linked yesterday.)
The Pandemic, Ctd.
Welcome to America! Ceylan Yeginsu, et al., of the New York Times: "The United States reopened its borders for vaccinated foreign travelers on Monday, ending more than 18 months of restrictions on international travel that separated families and cost the global travel industry hundreds of billions of dollars in tourism revenue. Before dawn on Monday, thousands of excited passengers flocked into Heathrow Airport for the first flights to the United States out of London. They were welcomed by dozens of airline staff who beamed and waved American flags as they ushered guests toward designated areas for documentation and security checks.... As a steady stream of traffic made its way through the San Ysidro, Calif., border crossing between Mexico and the United States on Monday morning, Todd Gloria, the mayor of San Diego, said, 'This is a great day for Tijuana, for San Diego, and for the entire binational region.' Traffic at the Canadian border was less robust. Canadians returning to their country must take an expensive P.C.R. test, which makes going to the United States for a quick shopping trip impractical."
Spencer Kimball of CNBC: "The White House on Monday said businesses should move forward wit President Joe Biden's vaccine and testing requirements for private businesses, despite a federal appeals court ordering a temporary halt to the rules.... In its [legal] response [to the pause ordered by Fifth Circuit judges] Monday evening, the Biden administration asked the court to lift the pause, dismissing the states' and companies' claims of harm as 'premature' given that the deadlines for vaccination and testing are not until January. The administration claimed that pausing the requirements 'would likely cost dozens or even hundreds of lives per day' as the virus spreads. The Labor and Justice Departments also argued that OSHA acted within its authority as established by Congress."
The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Monday are here. The Washington Post's live Covid-19 updates for Monday are here. (Also linked yesterday.)
Yes, Fox "News" Is Killing off Its Viewers. David Leonhardt of the New York Times: "There simply was not a strong partisan pattern to Covid during the first year that it was circulating in the U.S. Then the vaccines arrived. They proved so powerful, and the partisan attitudes toward them so different, that a gap in Covid's death toll quickly emerged.... The gap in Covid's death toll between red and blue America has grown faster over the past month than at any previous point. In October, 25 out of every 100,000 residents of heavily Trump counties died from Covid, more than three times higher than the rate in heavily Biden counties (7.8 per 100,000). October was the fifth consecutive month that the percentage gap between the death rates in Trump counties and Biden counties widened.... The ... explanation is straightforward: The vaccines are remarkably effective at preventing severe Covid, and almost 40 percent of Republican adults remain unvaccinated, compared with about 10 percent of Democratic adults.... This situation is a tragedy, in which irrational fears about vaccine side effects have overwhelmed rational fears about a deadly virus. It stems from disinformation -- promoted by right-wing media, like Rupert Murdoch's Fox News, the Sinclair Broadcast Group and online sources...." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ AND So Is This Guy. Ken Belson & Emily Anthes of the New York Times: "... when news broke that [Green Bay Packers QB Aaron Rodgers] tested positive for the coronavirus last week and was unvaccinated, Rodgers justified his decision to not get vaccinated by speaking out against the highly effective vaccines and spewing a stream of misinformation and junk science. Medical professionals were disheartened not just because it will make it harder for them to persuade adults to get vaccinated, but because they are also starting to vaccinate 5- to 11-year-olds. 'When you're a celebrity, you are given a platform,' said Dr. Paul A. Offit, the director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. 'When you choose to do what Aaron Rodgers is doing, which is to use the platform to put out misinformation that could cause people to make bad decisions for themselves or their children, then you have done harm.'... In [an] interview, Rodgers ... [tried] to distance himself from conspiracy theorists. 'I'm not, you know, some sort of anti-vax, flat-earther,' he said. 'I am somebody who's a critical thinker.' But many of his statements on the show echo those made by people in the anti-vaccine movement." ~~~
~~~ Like a Bad Neighbor. Mary Papenfuss of the Huffington Post: "State Farm insurance is continuing its financial partnership with vaccine-rejecting NFL star Aaron Rodgers, praising the Green Bay Packers quarterback as a 'great ambassador' for the company for nearly a decade. But the insurance giant is still encouraging people to get vaccinated against COVID-19, even though their ambassador evaded questions about his vaccination status, spread misinformation about the disease and has tested positive for COVID-19. 'We don't support some of the statements that he has made, but we respect his right to have his own personal point of view,' said a statement issued by a company spokesperson to USA Today."
~~~ Marie: Actually, Rodgers is a perfect fit for State Farm. He doesn't care about the consequences of his actions, & the insurance company suits don't care about theirs, either. Capitalism is awesome. State Farm carries a lot of my insurance. They'll be hearing from me. (I'm sure they're quaking in their boots.) ~~~
~~~ So This. Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: The Kaiser Family Foundation ran a new poll that "asked about false and unproven claims that have permeated the past year or so. Of the eight statements the poll tested, just 6 percent of Republicans believed each of them to be untrue, compared with 38 percent of Democrats. And 46 percent of Republicans either believed or were unsure about at least half of the claims, compared with just 14 percent of Democrats.... If you exclude Republicans who haven't heard the claims and focus on just who is familiar with them, a majority of them actually believe the claims."
Beyond the Beltway
Kentucky. Daniel Victor & Eduardo Medina of the New York Times: "A girl reported missing from Asheville, N.C., and in distress in the passenger seat of a car traveling through Kentucky appeared to be waving through the window to passing cars on Thursday. But one driver recognized the signal.... The girl, 16, was using a new distress signal, tucking her thumb into her palm before closing her fingers over it, according to the Laurel County Sheriff's Office. The signal, created by the Canadian Women's Foundation for people to indicate that they are at risk of abuse and need help, has spread largely through TikTok in the past year. The driver who spotted the signal called 911 and conveyed a suspicion that the girl was in trouble because she was using the hand gesture. Though the dispatcher and officers were unfamiliar with the signal, sheriff's deputies pulled the car over to investigate, and learned that the girl's parents had reported her missing two days earlier. Sheriff's deputies arrested the driver, James Herbert Brick, 61, of Cherokee, N.C., and charged him with unlawful imprisonment. Mr. Brick, who the sheriff's office said had pornographic images of a child on his phone, also faces a child pornography charge."
Wisconsin. Julie Bosman of the New York Times: "Gaige Grosskreutz, the only person who survived being shot by Kyle Rittenhouse in Kenosha, Wis., in August 2020, took the witness stand on Monday and described the instant he faced Mr. Rittenhouse, who had just fired several shots with a semiautomatic rifle. 'What was going through your mind at this particular moment?' Thomas Binger, the prosecutor, asked in court. 'That I was going to die,' Mr. Grosskreutz, a volunteer paramedic, said. As the prosecution's case in the homicide trial of Mr. Rittenhouse nears an end, Mr. Grosskreutz, 28, calmly delivered testimony for several hours as a star witness for the state. But his testimony at times lent support to Mr. Rittenhouse's central claim, that he was acting in self-defense when he shot Mr. Grosskreutz and two other men."
News Lede
AP: "Four astronauts returned to Earth on Monday, riding home with SpaceX to end a 200-day space station mission that began last spring. Their capsule streaked through the late night sky like a dazzling meteor before parachuting into the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Pensacola, Florida. Recovery boats quickly moved in with spotlights.... Within an hour, all four astronauts were out of the capsule, exchanging fist bumps with the team on the recovery ship. Their homecoming -- coming just eight hours after leaving the International Space Station -- paved the way for SpaceX's launch of their four replacements as early as Wednesday night."
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Reader Comments (16)
Is it unpardonably sexist of me to sympathize a little with this Republican party apparatchik who made a stupid phone call, doubtless at someone's direction, when I don't have any sympathy at all for the other clowns subpoenaed yesterday ?
Yes, it probably is. Have to wonder about myself.
https://january6th.house.gov/sites/democrats.january6th.house.gov/files/20211108%20McCallum.pdf
Perhaps Sen.-EpiPen, Joe Manchin, can use a loan from his daughter to hire a ghost writer. While this ghost writer is adjusting history, maybe he could look up Aaron Rodgers and fine tune his story as well....
Who NOT to write your personal history: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/08/opinion/biden-democrats-2022-2024.html?surface=most-popular&fellback=false&req_id=146485843&algo=clicks_raw&variant=holdout_most-popular&pool=pool/91fcf81c-4fb0-49ff-bd57-a24647c85ea1&imp_id=602428238&action=click&module=Popular%20in%20The%20Times&pgtype=Homepage. (Hope this monstrosity of a url works). Mark Penn is why Hillary lost and Democrats can't make it very far from an ocean: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Penn. He has a nicer tie than most hookers.
We've had plenty of colorful characters in Congress from the get-go but at this time it seems to me we have been hit with an abundant number of absolute loonies–-Paul Gosar being one of them. Before he was elected six of his siblings made a video urging Arizona voters NOT to vote for their brother––and each gave cogent reasons why and one reason being "He doesn't care about you–-he's out for himself." Now, as a voter, you would think that alone, coming from a family member as close as a brother, would give one pause. You would also think that listening to SIX siblings giving negative reports would sway you away from this loon. But NO, Arizona republicans voted him in.
I have listened to Gosar––he presents as a deranged, highly hyperbolic, scattershot shlemiel. What fun he has–––hey! it's only a video!, he says, depicting the killing of a congresswoman and the President.
If this buffoon isn't called on the carpet and stripped of whatever he can be stripped of then Kevin McCarthy needs to be ousted from HIS job.
Continuing with compromising comrades in arms, David Corn's piece on Manchin is, in a way, a direct contrast from the person above; one nut case, the other, a once respected senator who keeps putting up roadblocks to Biden's agenda. Some time ago Corn was on Hayes who asked him "what the heck is Manchin up to?" and Corn said, "publicity" and went on to describe what he thought was a power grab and found that old Joe many times spoke "out of two sides of his mouth."
What fun it would be to write a script for a Netflix series starring all the old colorful GOP characters: cruising along with Cruz, Lindsey, Kennedy, McConnell et al and bring in the newest jamokes who bring such color into Congress. We could show the trickle of all the insipid remarks, show the real fear of being exposed as the cowards that they try so hard to convince us they aren't.
@citizen625. Your URL can be made less monstrous by deleting everything after ...html? It's not needed.
Why Don Young (R. AK) did the right thing:
https://www.ktoo.org/2021/08/05/between-the-lines-8-ways-the-us-senate-infrastructure-bill-sends-money-to-alaska/
Georgia senators Warnock and Ossoff are going across Georgia spreading the word as to what the infrastructure bill means for communities and the state, giving dollar numbers to areas as they go.
Sadly, with our senators Rick Scott and Marco Rubio I'm sure that Floridians will get much less information. Governor DeSantis has already denounced the bill as typical barrel politics.
The passing of a great American, Max Cleland, a war veteran who lost three limbs, who would go on to serve as a US senator from Georgia, reminds me that GQP perfidy and disgusting sliminess is nothing new. Saxby (the asshole) Chambliss, a lying draft dodger, stole Cleland’s seat by portraying him as an unpatriotic friend to Osama Bin Laden.
Like so many other sleazy confederates who demand that others go fight wars they were all too cowardly to do themselves (Bush, Cheney, Trump, Gingrich, Limbaugh, Mitch McConnell, Bill O’Reilly, Trent Lott, Rudy Giuliani, Sean Hannity, and many, many more) Chambliss’ attacks on a true patriot who walked the walk serve as a highlight in the never ending parade of outrageous hypocrites that make up the Party of Traitors.
Thank you, Max.
Fuck you, Chambliss.
Bobby Lee,
Never fear, the red state traitors who voted against the infrastructure bill will line up to take credit for it once the economic benefits start to score with voters in their states. They’ve done it before, they’ll do it this time.
So let me get this straight. Voting for an infrastructure bill is a horrible thing, requiring not just censure, but immediate defenestration, if not imprisonment, but promoting a video of the sender violently murdering another House member is perfectly fine? Philosophers often use the concept of “all possible universes” when considering whether a thing is too far off the rails to ever be true.
Unfortunately, we apparently live in a universe not covered by the word “all”. Where’s the exit?
Okay, this is good.
So, last week, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg pointed out that one benefit of the infrastructure bill would be the opportunity to rectify past infrastructure plans designed specifically to enforce racist beliefs.
Wingers, who don’t believe there’s any such thing as racism, demanded proof of such an “outrageous” claim.
Okay, Gone With the Winders, here ya go:
https://digbysblog.net/2021/11/09/infrastructural-racism/
The link reminds these morons that Bob Caro, in his massive book about Robert Moses, proves that not only was racism present in many of Moses’ designs, it was the single most important driving factor.
Johnny Roberts, take note.
Akhilleus,
Very impressed you have read Caro's doorstop of a book.
Picked it off my shelf once and had to have physical therapy, so loaned it to a daughter in law and haven't asked for its return.
Think I'll wait for the opera (which by the way one of that daughter in laws's NY friends was working on..it's titled "A Marvelous Order," but I don't know if the opera was ever completed and produced).
@Ken Winkes: I, who never reads biographies, actually read all of Caro's book a long, long time ago. I forgot about that aspect of Caro's running roughshod through NYC -- racism was a feature, not a bug.
BTW, you're not sexist, but my view is that any woman who works for Donald Trump, much less one who diligently breaks the law for him, is as deserving of my sympathies as a Kellyanne Conway/Margie Greene blow-up doll.
Marie,
Yeah. Maybe it was her apparent age via the picture I saw of her and the hesitant, unschooled voice I heard on the recording of that phone call that tugged at me a little.
The old teacher in me sometimes retrains more optimism about what the young might yet learn than the behavior of too many aging nitwits would support.
That said, applauded today's subpoena of the painted blonde Kayliegh who tried to pass as a presidential spokesperson. Of course, she had no chance to pull it off. She didn't work for a president. She worked for a Pretender.
Ken,
I did read Caro’s book about Moses. Unlike Marie, I haven’t read his entire output—yet. I’ve only read the first three of his multi-volume biography of LBJ, absolutely riveting stuff.
I heard about the opera but haven’t heard it. I seem to recall it was an experimental multimedia presentation about Moses and his battles with Jane Jacobs. Moses, or at least a lightly fictionalized version of the guy plays a big role in the film “Motherless Brooklyn”, Quite a good one. Never read the book it was based on, however.
@Akhilleus: I should have been clearer. I read Caro's book on Moses; I haven't picked up any of the LBJ volumes.