The Commentariat -- August 7, 2021
Morgan Chalfant of the Hill: "President Biden on Friday gave a sober message on a strong July jobs report, saying the nation needs to get more people vaccinated to keep the economy growing strongly. 'My message today is not one of celebration. It's one to remind us we got a lot of hard work left to be done both to beat the delta variant and to continue our advance of economic recovery,' Biden said in remarks from the White House. 'This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated, so we have to get more people vaccinated.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ President Biden, in bid to be impeached, irresponsibly wears tan suit to deliver "sober message":
~~~ Update. Toljaso. Marisa Schultz of Fox "News": "An Ohio congressman on Friday asked his GOP House colleagues to consider filing articles of impeachment against President Biden for an 'unconstitutional' order to extend the eviction moratorium and for his 'dereliction' of duty in securing the southern border. Rep. Bob Gibbs, R-Ohio, sent a letter to his fellow Republicans urging them to seek impeachment because Biden 'continues to disregard his constitutional duties and boundaries,' he said." The supposed issues Gibbs raises are just covers for the real outrage: the tan suit.
Neil Irwin of the New York Times: "America is getting back to work. That's the simplest, clearest analysis of the labor market that emerges from nearly every line of the July employment numbers released Friday morning. It is a welcome sign that, as of the middle of last month, the economy is healing rapidly -- and that the previous couple of months reflected healthier results than previously estimated. There are caveats worth mentioning: The surveys on which this data are based were taken before people were worrying very much about the Delta variant of the coronavirus; the share of Americans participating in the work force hasn't really budged; and we still haven't achieved the kind of one-million-plus monthly job gains that seemed plausible back in the spring." Related stories linked under today's Ledes. (Also linked yesterday.)
9/11 Familes Play Hardball. Courtney Kube of NBC News: "Nearly 1,800 Americans directly affected by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks are opposing President Joe Biden's participation in any memorial events this year unless he upholds his pledge to declassify U.S. government evidence that they believe may show a link between Saudi Arabian leaders and the attacks. The victims' family members, first responders and survivors will release a statement Friday calling on Biden to skip 20th-anniversary events in New York and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and at the Pentagon unless he releases the documents, which they believe implicate Saudi officials in supporting the acts of terrorism. The group says that as a candidate Biden pledged to be more transparent and release as much information as possible but that his administration has since then ignored their letters and requests.... 'Through multiple administrations, the Department of Justice and the FBI have actively sought to keep this information secret and prevent the American people from learning the full truth about the 9/11 attacks,' the participants wrote." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: Unless DOJ has this info sitting ready to go, I don't see how they could get it out in a month. But the department should figure out a way.
My Favorite Tycoon.Jacob Bogage of the Washington Post: "The U.S. Postal Service will pay $120 million over the next five years to a major logistics contractor that Postmaster General Louis DeJoy previously helped lead and with which his family maintains financial ties, according to DeJoy's financial disclosure statements. The new contract will deepen the Postal Service's relationship with XPO Logistics, where DeJoy served as supply chain chief executive from 2014 to 2015 after the company purchased New Breed Logistics, the trucking firm he owned for more than 30 years. Since he became postmaster general, DeJoy, DeJoy-controlled companies and his family foundation have divested between $65.4 million and $155.3 million worth of XPO shares.... But DeJoy's family businesses continue to lease four North Carolina office buildings to XPO.... The previously unreported agreement will see XPO take over operations at two crucial sorting and distribution facilities in Atlanta and Washington, D.C." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Brian Naylor of NPR: "Two of the newly confirmed members of the U.S. Postal Service's Board of Governors spoke out Friday against Postmaster General Louis DeJoy's plan to slow delivery of first-class mail. But the board took no steps to stop or even modify the 10-year plan despite the concerns expressed by the board members and regulators. Ronald Stroman, one of three new governors named by President Biden, said ... that the changes 'disproportionally impact our seniors, middle- and low-income Americans, [and] small businesses, who are our most loyal customers and most dependent on us.'"
Lisa Mascaro of the AP:"Edging toward a vote, senators are convening for a rare weekend session on the bipartisan infrastructure bill, which could wrap up swiftly with passage of the $1 trillion package or drag out for days by opponents trying to slow President Joe Biden's big priority. The president nudged senators along from the White House, praising their work so far as a potentially 'historic investment' -- on par with the building of the transcontinental railroad or interstate highway system -- that will bring jobs and modernization to millions of Americans. Senators appear on track to approve the bill, despite days of fits and starts." ~~~
~~~ But It's Just a Superfluous, Slow-Moving Show. Alex Pareene, in a New York Times op-ed: "... having to spend so much time tortuously wringing support from the minority party to spend money on things people need and want is not actually a sign of a healthy system of government.... The Senate (with the White House's support) wasted months cajoling and rehabilitating a handful of key Republicans only to pass a smaller version of something Democrats could theoretically have passed entirely on their own.... The time spent finding a way to get 60 votes for the infrastructure bill was time not spent hashing out versions of an infrastructure bill, and the PRO Act, and the For the People Act, that could win 51 votes.... Moving the bill forward only looks like a victory if one accepts the sclerosis and dysfunction of the Senate as a natural obstacle to be overcome with cunning and patience, not a self-imposed limitation on effective and responsive governance.... From a policy perspective, splitting the proposal in two makes little sense." ~~~
~~~ Norm Ornstein in a New York Times op-ed: No, Mitch Machiavelli did not vote for the "bipartisan infrastructure" bill because he suddenly got "reasonable." His support for the bill is all about winning back the Senate in 2022 by making it appear Republicans look reasonable.
Paul Krugman of the New York Times: "... the Democrats-only part of the public investment [infrastructure] program probably will include some genuine sources of new revenue, if only to satisfy moderates still unduly worried about debt. But when it comes to finding these 'pay-fors,' the G.O.P.'s refusal to raise taxes or even try to collect taxes owed under current law may have done Democrats a favor. Why? Because Democrats can now pay for a lot of what they want with extremely popular policies. Polls consistently show strong support for raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy. I haven't seen polling on the idea of getting wealthy tax cheats to pay what they owe, but I think we can safely assume that this would be even more popular. So Republicans have offered Democrats a golden opportunity to show themselves both fiscally responsible and on the side of hard-working Americans as opposed to cheating elites." Thanks to PD Pepe for the link. (Also linked yesterday.)
Jamie Gangel & Rachel Janfaza of CNN: "Former Rep. Denver Riggleman is joining the staff of the House select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, the third Republican that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has added to the panel that GOP leadership has attacked as a partisan endeavor. Riggleman -- a former Virginia congressman and Air Force intelligence officer who has been an outspoken critic of ... Donald Trump -- will be a senior technical adviser for the committee, according to two sources familiar with the selection."
Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post: "A New Jersey gym owner and a Washington state man on Friday became the first people to plead guilty to assaulting police in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, facing what they acknowledged in plea deals could be roughly three to five years in prison under sentencing guidelines. The agreements by Scott K. Fairlamb, 44, of Sussex, N.J., and Devlyn D. Thompson, 28, of Seattle, set potential benchmarks for what at least 165 defendants charged with assaulting or impeding officers could expect if they cooperate. Fairlamb, a former mixed martial arts competitor, admitted to shoving and punching a D.C. police officer, identified in plea papers by the initials Z.B.... Thompson admitted to using a baton to strike at an officer deploying pepper spray during what prosecutors called the most violent confrontation between police and rioters at the Capitol, inside the archway and tunnel of the West Terrace's ceremonial entrance."
Chinese Thermometers! Katelyn Polantz, et al., of CNN: "Jeffrey Clark, a Donald Trump-appointed environment law chief at the Justice Department at the center of the former President's efforts to overturn the election, received a high-level intelligence briefing around New Year's 2021 that did little to stop his efforts to prove foreign interference had cost Trump reelection.... A stark portrayal of Clark is emerging from former Trump-appointed officials who were alarmed by his backchannel efforts to the White House and to Trump allies, and who now are now providing testimony to congressional committees. Richard Donoghue, acting deputy attorney general beginning in late December, provided a closed-door interview to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Friday.... By late December, as Trump and his allies pushed conspiracies about alleged irregularities that he claimed stole the election from him, Clark told senior Justice officials that he knew of sensitive information that indicated Chinese intelligence used special kinds of thermometers to change results in machines tallying votes, people briefed on the matter said. The Justice Department by then had made clear it found no evidence of vote-changing in the election."
Mike Lindell absolutely, positively proves Donald Trump won the 2020 election CNN report Drew Griffin confronts MyPillow Guy about his ridiculous claims of 2020 election fraud. It's embarrassing just to watch that Guy:
~~~ Philip Bump of the Washington Post: Mike Lindell "is so far into his bet and has earned so much celebrity by making it that he keeps pressing forward, using his money to convince himself that he is right and to buy attention from people who tell him the same thing.... As the Atlantic's Anne Applebaum put it after interviewing him last month, Lindell remains ;utterly impervious to any argument of any kind.'... The acute risk of claiming that the election was stolen is that people might act in dangerous ways in response to that belief. The obvious example is what happened at the Capitol on Jan. 6.... The long-term danger is that Lindell is contributing to a sense that election results aren't reliable, which is also false.... The American experiment hinges on trust in elections to a very real extent. And Lindell is actively trying to undermine that trust, pretty clearly because he actually incorrectly believes that trust isn't warranted.... It's all pathetic, in the classic, pitiful sense of the term." ~~~
~~~ Marie: The Lindell Corollary to Mitt Romney's "Corporations are people, my friend," is "Money Is Truth." Assuming that Bump is right and Lindell really believes this fantasy, Lindell thinks his fraudulent-election theory must be true because he "spent millions" on meaningless printouts of "data packets" or something. To Lindell, the proof is in the price of the "evidence." BTW, PD Pepe looked into Mike's "C.V." or whatever you want to call it, & she reports on it at the end of yesterday's Comments thread.
The Pandemic, Ctd.
AP: "The U.S. is now averaging 100,000 new COVID-19 infections a day, returning to a milestone last seen during the winter surge in yet another bleak reminder of how quickly the delta variant has spread through the country. The U.S. was averaging about 11,000 cases a day in late June. Now the number is 107,143."
Erica Green of the New York Times: "The Education Department announced Friday that it would continue a moratorium on federal student loan payments through Jan. 31, extending emergency relief for millions of borrowers that had been set to expire next month. The department said that this would be the 'final extension' of the pause, which the Trump administration instituted in March 2020 at the outset of the coronavirus pandemic, and that the additional time would allow the agency to transition borrowers back into repayment and reduce the risk of default and delinquency. More than 40 million borrowers have federally held loans, and during the moratorium, they have been interest-free and not subject to repayment or penalties for nonpayment."
The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Friday are here. (Also linked yesterday.)
Laurie McGinley & Lena Sun of the Washington Post: "Federal health officials are racing to ensure that millions of Americans with weakened immune systems can get additional shots of coronavirus vaccines to protect them against the highly contagious delta variant. The actions could mean the extra shots would be authorized in days or weeks, according to federal officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the plan has not been announced. (Also linked yesterday.)
Arkansas. Andrew DeMillo of the AP: "An Arkansas judge on Friday temporarily blocked the state from enforcing its ban on mask mandates after lawmakers left the prohibition in place despite a rising number of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations. Pulaski County Circuit Judge Tim Fox issued a preliminary injunction against the law that Gov. Asa Hutchinson signed in April banning mask requirements by governmental entities. The ban was being challenged by two lawsuits, including one from an east Arkansas school district where more than 900 staff and students are quarantining because of a coronavirus outbreak. Fox ruled the law violates Arkansas' constitution, saying it discriminates between public and private school students. He said it also infringes on the governor's emergency powers, as well as the authority of county officials and the state Supreme Court.... Fox issued the ruling hours after lawmakers adjourned a special session that Hutchinson had called to consider rolling back the ban for some schools."
Florida. Dean Obeidallah, in an MSNBC opinion piece: "There should be a special place in hell -- or potentially in prison -- for politicians who put their political goals ahead of the health and safety of our children. That is exactly what Gov. Ron DeSantis is doing in Florida with the executive order he signed last Friday barring school districts from mandating that students and school employees wear masks during the spike in Covid cases.... DeSantis is the future of the GOP."
Florida, Texas, Etc. Lying, Craven Scapegoaters. Linda Qiu of the New York Times: "Faced with rapidly rising cases in their states and criticized by President Biden for their opposition to mask mandates, the governors of Florida and Texas have pointed to the administration's border policies as a primary cause of the new cases. That sentiment has also echoed on social media, among members of Congress and among the unvaccinated.... Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida said of Mr. Biden on Wednesday, 'Whatever variants are across the world, they're coming through that southern border.'... But public health experts said there was no evidence that migrants were driving the surge of coronavirus.... There is not evidence that any of four variants of concern tracked by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention initially entered through the southern border." ~~~
~~~ The Only Real Covid Is Mexican Covid. Charlie Sykes of the conservative Bulwark, in Politico Magazine: "Even as many Republicans rail against mask mandates and spread skepticism about vaccines, GOP leaders have settled on one place where they take the spread of Covid very seriously -- the border. The pivot occurred quickly. This week, one Republican leader after another rushed to blame the spread of the virus, not on the unvaccinated but on immigrants.... With remarkable unanimity -- and a stunning lack of actual evidence -- conservative media has seized on the specter of disease-infested immigrants as the real danger to public health." MB: Kinda reminds me of the 1918 "Spanish flu" pandemic -- that didn't originate in Spain (or any Spanish-speaking country) but (perhaps) in Kansas.
South Dakota to Hold Second Annual Super-Spreader Bash. Erin Shumaker of ABC News: "South Dakota's Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, which begins Friday and runs through Aug. 15, is expected to draw upwards of 700,000 attendees. Last year's rally, which took place during the height of the United States' summer surge, had more than 400,000 estimated attendees, many of whom didn't wear masks as they patronized bars, restaurants and concerts.... Republican Gov. Kristi Noem supports the rally, a major economic driver in the state. 'There's a risk associated with everything that we do in life,' Noem wrote on Twitter Wednesday." MB: Yup. There's a risk with jumping out of a plane without of a chute, too. So, hey, why not? (Also linked yesterday.)
Anne Innocenzio of the AP: "Starting Monday, Amazon will be requiring all of its 900,000 U.S. warehouse workers to wear masks indoors, regardless of their vaccination status. The move follows steps by a slew of other retailers, including Walmart and Target, to mandate masks for their workers. In many of those cases the mandates apply to workers in locations of substantial COVID-19 transmission. Amazon said Friday that its call for a nationwide mask mandate for its warehouse workers was in response to the spread of COVID-19 variants in the U.S., and guidance from public health authorities and its own medical experts. Amazon has been requiring only warehouse workers not vaccinated against COVID-19 wear masks."
Leslie Josephs of CNBC: "United Airlines will require its 67,000 U.S. employees to get vaccinated against Covid by no later than Oct. 25 or risk termination, a first for major U.S. carriers that will likely ramp up pressure on rivals. Airlines including United have so far resisted vaccine mandates for all workers, instead offering incentives like extra pay or time off to get inoculated. Delta Air Lines in May started requiring newly hired employees to show proof of vaccination. United followed suit in June." (Also linked yesterday.)
Beyond the Beltway
Arizona. Mary Jo Pitzi of the Arizona Republic: "State Sen. Otoniel 'Tony' Navarrete [D] is facing seven felony counts involving allegations of sexual conduct with two teenagers, which would add up to a minimum of 49 years in prison if he were convicted. Maricopa County Superior Court Commissioner Steve McCarthy set a $50,000 bond and placed numerous restrictions on Navarrete, D-Phoenix, should he be released from jail. The lawmaker made his initial court appearance Friday afternoon. Before the afternoon was over, Navarrete's 48 Democratic colleagues in both the House and Senate called on him to resign, and other elected officials joined the chorus asking him to step down.... Police [had] interviewed the alleged victims and then had one of them call Navarette.... In the recorded call, monitored by police, Navarrete, 35, acknowledged touching the victim's penis and performing oral sex on the youth multiple times over several years...." Firewalled.
New York. Jonah Bromwich & Luis Ferré-Sadurní of the New York Times: "On the day news broke that a woman who has accused Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of groping her breast had filed a formal criminal complaint against him, his lawyers responded with their most detailed defense of the governor yet and sought to cast doubt on key parts of the woman's story. In a news conference streamed online, the governor's personal lawyer, Rita Glavin, suggested that the woman, an executive assistant who has not been named, was not alone with Mr. Cuomo at the Executive Mansion on the day in question, was sent there for different reasons than she has said and had expressed no qualms about the day in emails to colleagues.... Ms. Glavin and lawyers for the executive chamber also used the news conference to question the fairness of a report released this week by the New York state attorney general, Letitia James, that accused the governor of sexually harassing the woman and 10 others, and questioned the impartiality of the investigators who compiled it."
A Guide to Bullies. Chapter 4: Sexual Abuse
1. Grope the Mark.
2. Gaslight: deny the Mark's report.
3. Smear and/or insult the Mark.
Pennsylvania Senate Primary Races. Trip Gabriel of the New York Times: The open Senate seat in Pennsylvania "is the only open seat now in Republican hands in a state that Mr. Biden carried, and Democrats see it as their best opportunity to expand their hairbreadth control of the Senate.... On Friday..., [Rep. Conor] Lamb [D] announced his long-expected entry into Pennsylvania&'s 2022 Senate race.... The question is whether he is liberal enough to win the Democratic primary.... The early favorite of progressives and presumed front-runner for the Democratic nomination is Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, something of a folk hero to the national left.... Mr. Fetterman's challenge is [that] ... he could win the May primary but be seen as too liberal for Pennsylvania's general-election voters.... [Other candidates include] Val Arkoosh, a county official in the electorally key Philadelphia suburbs and the only woman in the race, and Malcolm Kenyatta, a telegenic young state lawmaker from North Philadelphia.... [On the Republican side,] almost everyone has elbowed into the 'Super-MAGA-Trumpy' lane." A Politico story is here.
Way Beyond
Afghanistan. Adam Nossiter, et al., of the New York Times: "The Taliban captured a regional hub city in western Afghanistan on Friday, officials said, the first provincial capital to fall to the insurgency since the Biden administration announced the full withdrawal of U.S. troops. The successful takeover marks a significant milestone in the insurgents' relentless march to increase their stranglehold on the Afghan government and retake power in the country. The Taliban have besieged a host of such cities for weeks, and the fall of Zaranj, the provincial capital of Nimruz Province on the Afghanistan-Iran border, is the Taliban's first breakthrough."
Russia. Andrew Kramer of the New York Times: "A Russian court sentenced on Friday an American businessman who is one of the country's most prominent foreign investors to a suspended sentence of five-and-a-half years in a penal colony for a conviction on embezzlement charges.... The suspended sentence for the businessman, Michael Calvey, the founder of Baring Vostok, a private equity firm with $3.7 billion under management, means he will not spend time in Russia's notoriously harsh penal colony system, the successor to the gulag camps, unless he violates parole conditions. But the threat of prison that still hangs over Mr. Calvey, and his six co-defendants in the case, was expected nonetheless to put a damper on foreign interest in doing business in Russia, where foreign direct investment is already complicated by weak property rights and Western sanctions."
Japan. Tim Reynolds of the AP: After a rocky start, the U.S. men's basketball team won gold at the Olympics in an 87-82 win over France.
News Lede
Politico (August 6): "The Dixie Fire burning in two Northern California counties is now the largest single wildfire in recorded state history, exploding in size overnight as drought-stricken lands continue to fuel the flames."
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Reader Comments (5)
I totally agree with the Florida and Texas governors that the border,
or borders, should be closed
That would be the Florida and Texas borders closed to stop the
spread. But I think it's probably too late for that as I see all these
Florida escapees in town continually. Hopefully they're the
vaccinated ones but I still wear a mask when walking to the
post office. Seems you can't trust anyone you don't know personally.
@Forrest Morris: I wonder if your close personal friend Betsy DeVos wears a mask for those rare occasions when she is in danger of coming in contact with the riffraff.
At Sturgis, as Gov. Kristi says, there's risk, just like everywhere.
But ... a lot of those Sturgis rallygoers make a point of not wearing helmets. Even in states with helmet laws, many scoff by wearing plastic helmet-shaped chapeaux on which they can affix their wise-ass stickers.
Real-live data shows that the most important single thing riders can do to protect themselves is to wear a helmet, and that consequences of not wearing are dire. Most of these helmetless riders figure that they haven't died in the past, so what are the odds, huh?
Surprisingly, many of these folks are actuaries, dentists, lawyers and such, supplying a life-style need by buying a bike.
The good thing about such people not wearing helmets is that they contribute to a steady source of organ donations. I worked in Houston Methodis Hospital ER in the late 60s, where the ER nurses call them "donorcycles." Except for eyeparts, organ transplants don't do as well from dead donors as from brain-dead sonn-to-be-dead ones, and helmetless crashes make that work pretty well. So, tough for the brain dead, but OK for some recipient.
Unfortunately, the Kristi Kontrol-Risk Emergency Action Management System (Kristi KREAMS) for Covid, used by those same riders (i.e. "What, me worry?"), provides no such benefit, because organs with Covid-cooties are so risky that they create big monetary liabilities (and, coincidentally, could kill recipients.)
No guts no glory, eh?
Scott Apley, 45, member of the Texas State Republican Executive Committee died a few days ago from what certainly appears to be Covid. He leaves a wife (who also tested positive for Covid) and a new baby boy.
Here was a man who mocked vaccinations, posting anti-vax messages plus shared an image of touting a mask burning event.
On the GOP facebook post:
"A tragedy––please pray [for wife and son]. God remains in control, although this is yet another tough one to swallow."
Translation: It is God's fault that Apley died. Please pray, however for his wife and son, cuz you never know–-God just might spare them. It's tough to swallow why God would kill this man of upstanding ethics and integrity.
"Happy are we that live in the House of the Lord for He doth shower us with goodness and mercy for all our days."
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/h-scott-apley-dead-galveston-gop-covid-texas_n_610de0f9e4b0cc1278bc44df
From my D. C. friend:
Though in no way excusing the Groping Gov, there are cultural differences.
About 20 years ago, I was working on a project at the University of Liege in Belgium. Though I had been in much of Europe before, this was my first visit to the Low Countries. I was somewhat taken aback to see men and women kissing each others cheeks as casually and frequently as people elsewhere shake hands -- including in a business or other professional setting. My male colleagues routinely exchanged kisses on greeting and parting every day.
Knowing that it was not our custom, no one attempted to kiss me. After I had been there for some time, however, making friends, and seeing my colleagues and their families socially, some of their wives offered their cheek and invited me to kiss them saying, "You may."
The one exception was the waitress at a restaurant I used to frequent. After my third visit, and subsequently, the waitress began planting a big smooch on me each time I arrived. That wasn't the reason I kept coming back, though. The food was amazing.