The Commentariat -- June 29, 2021

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

New York. Katie Glueck of the New York Times: "A new tally of votes in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary suggested that the race between Eric Adams, the primary night leader, and his two closest rivals had tightened significantly, plunging the closely watched contest into a period of fresh uncertainty. A week after Mr. Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, notched a substantial lead among those who voted in person last Tuesday or during the early voting period, a preliminary counting of ranked-choice preferences released on Tuesday showed him ahead by a much narrower margin in the city's first ranked-choice mayoral election. According to Tuesday's unofficial tally, Mr. Adams leads Kathryn Garcia by just 15,908 votes, a margin of less than two percentage points, in the final round. Maya Wiley, who came in second place in the initial vote count, was in third place after the elimination rounds were completed."

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Tuesday are here.

Kate Bennett of CNN: "It is back en vogue for the first lady to be back in Vogue. After a four year hiatus of first ladies gracing the cover of the fashion magazine, Jill Biden is on the August issue, which goes on sale on July 20.... A first lady in the pages of Vogue, or on the cover, has -- for the last several decades -- become an American publishing tradition; almost every modern first lady has been photographed for the magazine. The exception was Melania Trump, whose tenure in the White House was tied to the controversies of ... Donald Trump. There have been conflicting arguments as to which side -- Trump's or Vogue editor in chief Anna Wintour's -- was responsible for keeping Trump, a former model, from being featured. Neither spoke of it publicly, but Wintour was vocal about her thoughts on Donald Trump, using her editorial note in the March 2020 issue of Vogue to endorse Biden for president, pointing to the 45th President's 'dishonesty,' and 'shocking lack of empathy.'" MB: This ironic in that Melanie was the only First Lady who ever worked as a model, and no one doubts she would have made for a glamorous Vogue cover.

John Wagner of the Washington Post: "The House is poised to vote Tuesday on legislation to remove statues of Confederate leaders from the U.S. Capitol and replace the bust of Roger B. Taney, the U.S. chief justice who wrote the Supreme Court decision that said people of African descent are not U.S. citizens. A similar bill passed the House last year on a 305-to-113 vote but did not advance in the Senate, then controlled by Republicans. Upon reintroducing the bill this year, House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) pointed to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, during which some supporters of ... Donald Trump carried Confederate flags. 'There are still vestiges that remain in this sacred building that glorify people and a movement that embraced that flag and sought to divide and destroy our great country,' Clyburn said. 'This legislation will remove these commemorations from places of honor....' The legislation would replace the bust of Taney ... with one of Thurgood Marshall, the first Black member of the Supreme Court.... The legislation faces challenges in the evenly divided Senate where it would have to overcome the 60-vote filibuster threshold."

Paul Gosar Is Even Worse Than You Thought. Aiden McLaughlin of Mediaite: "Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) is holding a fundraiser with Nick Fuentes, an online commentator who has achieved a following as an open anti-Semite, Holocaust denier, and white supremacist. A flyer posted to a Telegram account linked to Fuentes promoted a July fundraiser with the ardently pro-Trump congressman.... Fuentes is a virulent anti-Semite who has denied the Holocaust, defended racial segregation and called for the killing of 'globalists at CNN'. He also spoke at the infamous Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017.... 'Not sure why anyone is freaking out,' [Gosar] said [in a tweet]."

** Because Everything They Did Was Corrupt. Desmond Butler of the Washington Post: "In February 2017, weeks after ... Donald Trump selected him to be agriculture secretary, [Sonny] Perdue's company bought a small grain plant in South Carolina from one of the biggest agricultural corporations in America. Had anyone noticed, it would have prompted questions ahead of his confirmation, a period when most nominees lie low and avoid potential controversy. The former governor of Georgia did not disclose the deal -- there was no legal requirement to do so. An examination of public records ... has found that the agricultural company, Archer-Daniels-Midland (ADM), sold the land at a small fraction of its estimated value just as it stood to benefit from a friendly secretary of agriculture.... Danny Brown, the former president of [Perdue's former company] AGrowStar, confirmed negotiations began in late 2015. But Brown said ADM wanted $4 million for the plant -- 16 times what Perdue's company ultimately paid for it.... 'This stinks to high heaven,' said Julie O'Sullivan, a Georgetown University law professor and former federal prosecutor. 'It deserves a prosecutor's attention.'..." Emphasis added. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Both Perdue & ADM have histories of participating in shady transactions, as Butler reports. And, yes, while he was Ag Secretary, Perdue helped out ADM. A lot. Sometimes at your expense. In a picture accompanying the article, Sonny is pictured laughing with some ADM employees at an ag show. I'd like to see the big grin wiped off his face -- and his big ass tightly encased in an orange jumpsuit.

Lori Aratani of the Washington Post: "United Airlines announced a deal Tuesday for its largest airplane order amid a continuing rebound in air travel: 270 new aircraft, including 200 Boeing 737 Max jets and 70 A321neos built by Airbus. The order is a boost for Boeing's 737 Max aircraft and the largest since the Federal Aviation Administration certified they were safe after they were grounded following fatal crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia. At the end of March, Southwest Airlines announced it would order 100 Max jets. With its latest order, United expects to add more than 500 new aircraft to its fleet in the coming years, with 40 expected to arrive in 2022; 138 in 2023 and as many as 350 in 2024. While airlines have struggled during the pandemic, passenger counts have risen significantly in recent weeks as coronavirus caseloads fall and Americans spend more time traveling."

Arizona Backfire. Marc Caputo of Politico: "When Arizona Republicans first pushed for a partisan audit of the 2020 presidential ballots cast in the Phoenix metropolitan area, they argued that they needed to know if any irregularities or fraud caused President Trump to lose this rapidly evolving swing state. But the audit itself could be damaging Republican prospects, according to a new Bendixen & Amandi International poll, which shows roughly half of Arizona voters oppose the recount effort. In addition, a narrow majority favors President Biden in a 2024 rematch against Trump. The news isn't entirely promising for Democrats, however: A majority of voters don't think Biden should run for a second term.

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Myah Ward of Politico: "President Joe Biden on Monday pitched the bipartisan infrastructure deal as one 'American people can be proud of,' while cautioning that there was a lot of work ahead to finish the final product. 'This deal is the largest long-term investment in our infrastructure in nearly a century,' Biden wrote in an op-ed on Yahoo News. 'Economists of all stripes agree that it would create good jobs and dramatically strengthen our economy in the long run.'... But the president said Monday that he intended to go further and pass [climate & other] initiatives in the reconciliation bill, while touting that this initial deal was a 'crucial step forward' in clean energy investment."

Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Monday introduced legislation that would create a select committee to probe the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob, with an aide suggesting the speaker may include a Republican among her appointees. The House Rules Committee considered the legislation Monday night. The House will hold a procedural vote on the measure Tuesday, and a vote on the legislation itself is expected Wednesday.... According to the legislation, Pelosi would have the power to appoint eight members to the panel, while five members would be selected 'after consultation with' House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). McCarthy last week declined to say whether he plans to appoint members to the committee -- and notably did not commit to refrain from choosing lawmakers who have made comments minimizing the events of Jan. 6. The chair of the panel would have subpoena power...." An AP story is here.

In yesterday's Comments, contributor Patrick highlighted an interview in Salon by Paul Rosenberg of Rachel Bitecofer, a political scientist who has founded "her own super PAC -- Strike PAC -- to do the kind of messaging her research suggests is key to winning elections with today's electorate." Here's one of her ads: ~~~

Robert Barnes & Ann Marimow of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court on Monday revived a lawsuit that alleges St. Louis police used excessive force in subduing a man who died while handcuffed and shackled in his cell. In an unsigned opinion, the court threw out a lower-court ruling in favor of the officers, which dismissed the suit filed by the man's parents. Six officers kept Nicholas Gilbert in a prone position for 15 minutes after he had been handcuffed and placed in leg irons.... The Supreme Court said it was unclear whether the lower court carefully considered all relevant circumstances, including that Gilbert was already handcuffed and shackled when officers kept him in a prone position." Alito, Thomas & Gorsuch dissented from the decision.

Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a legal battle over the rights of transgender students, handing a victory to Gavin Grimm over the Virginia school board that denied him the right to use the boys' restroom. As is its custom, the court did not say why it was rejecting the appeal of the Gloucester County school district. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. said they would have accepted the case. The court's decision not to take up the case does not establish a national precedent. In a 2-to-1 decision last August, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit said the school board had practiced sex-based discrimination and violated the 14th Amendment by prohibiting Grimm, a transgender student, from using the bathroom that aligned with his gender identity. His high school offered a single-stall restroom as an alternative."

Cecilia Kang of the New York Times: "In a stunning setback to regulators' efforts to break up Facebook, a federal judge on Monday threw out antitrust lawsuits brought against the company by the Federal Trade Commission and more than 40 states. The judge, James E. Boasberg for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, said the case from the states needed to be dismissed because too much time had elapsed since the alleged offenses took place. The states, led by Letitia James, the New York attorney general, accused Facebook in December of buying up nascent competitors like Instagram and WhatsApp -- deals made in 2012 and 2014 -- to cement its monopoly over social networking. In a separate, 53-page opinion, he said the complaint by the Federal Trade Commission, also filed in December, failed to provide enough facts to back its claims that Facebook had a monopoly over personal social networking.... The judge said the F.T.C. could try again within 30 days with more detail, but he suggested that the agency faced steep challenges." Boasberg is an Obama appointee.

Betsy Swan of Politico: "Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance has indicated he does not currently plan to charge the Trump Organization with crimes related to allegations of 'hush money' payments and real estate value manipulations, according to a personal lawyer for Donald Trump. Ronald Fischetti, a New York attorney who represents the former president, said on Monday that in a meeting last week, he asked Vance's team for details on charges they were considering. According to Fischetti, members of Vance's team said they were considering bringing charges against the Trump Organization and its individual employees related to alleged failures to pay taxes on corporate benefits and perks. It has been widely reported that those perks included cars and apartments and appear to only involve a small number of executives.... Fischetti also said that Vance's team told him they will not bring charges against Trump himself when the first indictment comes down." MB: If this is correct, the charges that might come down this week are those designed to flip certain Trump Org executives. ~~~

     ~~~ Tom Hays & Jim Mustian of the AP: "'There is no indictment coming down this week against the former president,' Fischetti said in a telephone interview Monday. 'I can't say he's out of the woods yet completely.'" ~~~

~~~ David Fahrenthold, et al., of the Washington Post: "Attorneys for the Trump Organization met with New York prosecutors on Monday to argue that ... Donald Trump's company should not be criminally charged over its business dealings, according to three people familiar with the meeting. Previously, the prosecutors -- working for Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. (D) and New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) -- had set Monday as the last day for the Trump Organization's lawyers to make their case.... No charges were announced on Monday."

Marshall Cohen of CNN: "Excerpts from three upcoming books revealed previously unknown efforts by ... Donald Trump to abuse the powers of his office to overturn the 2020 election, deploy the military against racial justice protests and prosecute his political opponents. The excerpts also shed new light on Trump's increasingly unstable mindset in his final year. They portrayed a president who was obsessed with self-serving conspiracy theories and surrounded by aides who knew he was delusional but were too afraid to tell him the truth. Here's a breakdown of the latest bombshells from the three books.... [MB: The only one of the three not previously linked here:] A new book from controversial journalist Michael Wolff includes details of what unfolded inside the White House while the Capitol was overrun.... Trump's senior advisers ... knew Trump was experiencing 'derangement,' but were too scared to tell him that his dreams of overturning the election were hopeless, Wolff reported. The book says Trump's staff begged and pleaded with him to publicly disavow the violence at the Capitol. He waited for hours, and his daughter Ivanka Trump even allegedly said the attack was only 'an optics issue.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Edward Helmore of the Guardian has more on Wolff's book. "On 6 January..., Trump spoke to supporters outside the White House, telling them: 'We're going to walk down [to the Capitol to protest] -- and I'll be there with you.'... 'I didn't mean it literally,' Trump reportedly [later told his chief-of-staff Mark Meadows]. Trump is also reported to have expressed 'puzzlement' about the supporters who broke into the Capitol.... Wolff says Trump was confused by 'who these people were with their low-rent "trailer camp" bearing and their "get-ups", once joking that he should have invested in a chain of tattoo parlors and shaking his head about "the great unwashed".' [According to Wolff, Trump told Meadows,] '...This looks terrible. This is really bad. Who are these people? These aren't our people, these idiots with these outfits. They look like Democrats.']" MB: This looks to me like an attempt to rehabilitate Trump, and it sounds, from this report, as if Meadows was Wolff's source, so it would be he who was trying to do the rehabilitating. But I doubt Trump's "trailer-trash" fans, many of whom will garner felony records & go to jail for their efforts, will be pleased by his supposed opinion of them.

Guardian: "Barack Obama said on Monday that ... Donald Trump violated a 'core tenet' of democracy when he made up a 'bunch of hooey' about last year's election and refused to concede he lost. Speaking at his first virtual fundraiser since the 2020 election, the former Democratic president said former Republican president's claims undermined the legitimacy of US elections and helped lead to other anti-democratic measures such as efforts to suppress the vote.... 'Here's the bottom line. If we don't stop these kinds of efforts now, what we are going to see is more and more contested elections ... We are going to see a further de-legitimizing of our democracy,' he said, as well as 'a breakdown of the basic agreement that has held this magnificent democratic experiment together all these years'."

Greg Sargent of the Washington Post: "Having gone to extraordinary lengths to help Donald Trump corrupt the presidency, William P. Barr is working overtime to launder his post-Trump reputation. But the former attorney general's latest cleanup exercise may end up showing that the stain of his corruption is even darker than we thought -- in a way that soils other Republicans as well.... In early November, Barr had taken the extraordinary step of authorizing U.S. attorneys to open election fraud investigations. The move attracted scalding criticism -- the department had long refrained from such investigations until results are certified, to avoid this very sort of politicization.... [Mitch] McConnell looks even worse.... McConnell asked Barr to use the department for the purpose of managing a GOP political problem and that McConnell spent weeks refusing to acknowledge Trump's loss while knowing this was hurting the country." ~~~

~~~ Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "This is a central story of the Trump era, that his putative allies were almost never interested in challenging him and his dishonesty. And on voter fraud, that pattern began before he was even president [in 2016].... Trump's attorney general, William P. Barr, played his part ably.... 'There's so many occasions for fraud there that cannot be policed,' Barr said in an interview with NPR. '... But one of the things I mentioned was the possibility of counterfeiting' of ballots.... The moral of Barr's face-saving interview with Karl isn't that he did his best, it's that he didn't.... The GOP let Trump make false and ridiculous claims about fraud for five years.... Trump repeated the same [fake fraud] claims in a statement bashing Barr that was released Sunday evening." ~~~

~~~ Brett Samuels of the Hill: "Former President Trump on Monday lashed out at Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell R-Ky.), incensed by a forthcoming book that reports McConnell urged former Attorney General William Barr to push back on Trump's falsehoods after November's election.... 'Had Mitch McConnell fought for the Presidency like he should have, there would right now be Presidential Vetoes on all of the phased Legislation that he has proven to be incapable of stopping,' Trump said in a Monday statement, reiterating his belief that Republicans lost both Senate runoff races in Georgia in January because of McConnell." MB: Love those childish capitalizations.

The Right Wing Goes All in on Ignorance. Paul Krugman of the New York Times: "Closed-mindedness and ignorance have become core conservative values, and those who reject these values are the enemy, no matter what they may have done to serve the country.... The current obsession with critical race theory is a cynical attempt to change the subject away from the Biden administration's highly popular policy initiatives, while pandering to the white rage that Republicans deny exists. But it's only one of multiple subjects on which willful ignorance has become a litmus test for anyone hoping to succeed in Republican politics.... Right-wingers have gone all in on ignorance, so they were bound to come into conflict with every institution -- including the U.S. military -- that is trying to cultivate knowledge." ~~~

~~~ Let's Scare All the White People. Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post: "Republicans' hissy fit over critical race theory is nothing more than an attempt to rally the party's overwhelmingly White base by denying documented history and uncomfortable truth.... It is all about alarming White voters into believing that they are somehow threatened if our educational system makes any meaningful attempt to teach the facts of the nation's long struggle with race. The Republican state legislators falling over themselves to decide how history can and cannot be taught in schools -- and blowhards such as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), who warn that children are being taught 'every White person is a racist' -- know exactly what they're doing.... The flap over critical race theory is just another scam from a party that believes in nothing except the unprincipled pursuit of power."

Jason Wilson of the Guardian: "Leaked membership data from the neo-Confederate Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) organization has revealed that the organization's members include serving military officers, elected officials, public employees, and a national security expert whose CV boasts of 'Department of Defense Secret Security Clearance'. But alongside these members are others who participated in and committed acts of violence at the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and others who hold overlapping membership in violent neo-Confederate groups such as the League of the South (LoS). The group, organized as a federation of state chapters, has recently made news for increasingly aggressive campaigns against the removal of Confederate monuments. This has included legal action against states and cities, the flying of giant Confederate battle flags near public roadways, and Confederate flag flyovers at Nascar races."

U.S. "Conservatives" Are Especially Dangerous. Cameron Easley of the Morning Consult: "The Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol gave the country a striking wake-up call to the alarming rise in undemocratic behavior on the right side of the political aisle, and new global Morning Consult research underscores the prevalence of authoritarian attitudes among U.S. conservatives.... A scale measuring propensity toward right-wing authoritarian tendencies found right-leaning Americans scored higher than their counterparts in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom. [Twenty-six percent] of the U.S. population qualified as highly right-wing authoritarian, Morning Consult research found, twice the share of the No. 2 countries, Canada and Australia. The beliefs that voter fraud decided the 2020 election, that Capitol rioters were doing more to protect than undermine the government and that masks and vaccines are not pivotal to stopping COVID-19 were similarly prevalent among right-leaning Americans and those that scored high for right-wing authoritarianism." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Yesterday I watched a rerun of a Rick Steves travel show about fun sites to visit in the former Yugoslavia, a cobbled-together country held together for 40 years or so by dictator Josip Broz Tito, and which fell apart -- after Tito's death -- in a horrible ethnic war in the 1980s and early 1990s. Even in some of the larger cities, the bullet holes on buildings are still visible. It could happen here. ~~~

     ~~~ Later, I read Tim Egan of the New York Times: "The United States is becoming a mean country.... Tribalism, and the corrosive hatreds that go with it, has always been just below the surface in the risky experiment of our multiethnic democracy. Of late, it has surfaced in many of our daily interactions -- and accounts for much of the meanness of this moment.... In mean America, in January, nearly three in 10 people surveyed expressed support for politically motivated violence, if necessary.... The underlying theme of all this meanness is intolerance.... There's an old saying, attributed to the Sioux: A people without history is like wind on the buffalo grass. What may be worse are a people without a heart, unable to see half their countrymen and countrywomen as anything but the enemy."

Mark Mazzetti & Adam Goldman of the New York Times (June 25): "Operatives infiltrated progressive groups across the West to try to manipulate politics and reshape the national electoral map. They targeted moderate Republicans, too -- anyone seen as threats hard-line conservatives.... Using large campaign donations and cover stories, the operatives aimed to gather dirt that could sabotage the reputations of people and organizations considered threats to a hard-right agenda advanced by ... Donald J. Trump. At the center of the scheme was an unusual cast: a former British spy connected to the security contractor Erik Prince, a wealthy heiress to the Gore-Tex fortune and undercover operatives.... Sometimes, their tactics were bumbling and amateurish. But the operation's use of spycraft to manipulate the politics of several states over years greatly exceeds the tactics of more traditional political dirty tricks operations."

Miriam Berger of the Washington Post: "Around the world, in countries with paltry building codes, little enforcement of existing rules and the proliferation of informal housing, tragedies like Thursday's building collapse in Florida -- where scores of people are still missing -- have taken a heavy toll.... The disaster in Surfside shocked many Americans who are unaccustomed to such events. 'These buildings do not fall down like this in First World countries,' Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said on Thursday after the partial collapse of the Champlain Towers South building. 'This is a Third World event, and we need to understand why this happened.'" Berger lists a lot of building collapses in other countries. MB: My first thought, upon hearing of the Surfside collapse was, "We're a third-world country now." Several years back, my husband and I seriously considered buying a penthouse apartment in a Naples, Florida, highrise. Had we bought it, I'd be living there now. Just thinking about that makes me feel anxious.

YouTube Moderators Must Be Super-Stupid. Rebecca Klar of the Hill: "YouTube reinstated the channel Right Wing Watch on Monday, saying it 'mistakenly' suspended the account, which focuses on monitoring conservative groups and figures. 'Right Wing Watch's YouTube channel was mistakenly suspended, but upon further review, has now been reinstated,' a YouTube spokesperson said in a statement. Right Wing Watch tweeted screenshots Monday from YouTube messages notifying the group that its channel had been suspended over community guideline violations and that an appeal to the suspension had been denied.<"

The Pandemic, Ctd.

Apoorva Mandavilli, et al., of the New York Times: "Three scientific studies released on Monday offered fresh evidence that widely used vaccines will continue to protect people against the coronavirus for long periods, possibly for years, and can be adapted to fortify the immune system still further if needed. Most people immunized with the mRNA vaccines may not need boosters, one study found, so long as the virus and its variants do not evolve much beyond their current forms -- which is not guaranteed. Mix-and-match vaccination shows promise, a second study found, and booster shots of one widely used vaccine, if they are required, greatly enhance immunity, according to a third report."

Beyond the Beltway

Arizona. When the Circus Comes to Town ... It's Costly. Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "Arizona's Maricopa County announced Monday that it will replace voting equipment that was turned over to a private contractor for a Republican-commissioned review of the 2020 presidential election, concerned that the process compromised the security of the machines. Officials from Maricopa, the state's largest county and home to Phoenix, provided no estimates of the costs involved but have previously said that the machines cost millions to acquire. 'The voters of Maricopa County can rest assured, the County will never use equipment that could pose a risk to free and fair elections,' the county said in a statement. 'As a result, the County will not use the subpoenaed equipment in any future elections.' The announcement probably reflects an added cost to taxpayers for a controversial review that has been embraced by supporters of ... Donald Trump.... In May, all seven of the county's elected officials -- including five Republicans -- joined in a scathing letter to the state Senate denouncing the audit as a sham.... Noting the tactics used by organizers of the review, such as hunting for bamboo in ballot paper, they added, 'Your "audit," which you once said was intended to increase voters' confidence in our electoral processhas devolved into a circus.'"

Wisconsin. David Siders of Politico: "Just as the [Wisconsin] state party gathered this past weekend, Trump issued a statement tearing into the state Assembly speaker, Robin Vos, and two other Republican lawmakers for doing too little to promote his election conspiracies.But ... when Vos and Devin LeMahieu, the state's Senate majority leader, took the stage on Saturday in front of some of the party's most fervent pro-Trump activists, it was as though Trump had said nothing at all.... Convention-goers dismissed an effort to censure [Vos].... There were signs [Trump's] comments were dismissed with a roll of the eyes.... Trump remains wildly popular among Wisconsin Republicans.... ... In his statement issued the night before Vos spoke, Trump, seeking to stoke grassroots outrage, accused Vos, LeMahieu and state Sen. Chris Kapenga of 'working hard to cover up election corruption ... actively trying to prevent a Forensic Audit.'... One delegate deleted Trump's statement from his phone, saying he wished Trump would 'shut up, and I'm a big Trump supporter.'"

News Ledes

The New York Times' live updates of developments in the condo collapse near Miami Beach, Florida, are here. The Washington Post's live updates are here.

Axios: "The extraordinary heat wave that's stifling the Pacific Northwest reached its peak in many areas on Monday. Seattle smashed its all-time high-temperature record, set just the day before, by 4°F.... A highly unusual weather pattern that statistically has less than a 1-in-several-thousand-year chance of occurring is in place over the Pacific Northwest, with arecord -strong high-pressure area aloft -- colloquially known as a 'heat dome' -- sitting over Washington state and British Columbia. This heat dome is yielding temperatures 25-50°F above average across multiple states and British Columbia.... The heat was so severe Monday that pavement buckled across the Seattle and Portland metro areas." ~~~

~~~ New York Times: "Canada broke a national heat record on Sunday when the temperature in a small town in British Columbia reached almost 116 degrees Fahrenheit, breaking an 84-year-old record by nearly 3 degrees, with dangerously hot weather expected to continue for several more days.... David Phillips, a senior climatologist at Environment Canada, a government agency, said the early timing of this [weather event], its intensity and its duration, could all be attributable to rising global temperatures."

The Commentariat -- June 28, 2021

Late Morning Update:

Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a legal battle over the rights of transgender students, handing a victory to Gavin Grimm over the Virginia school board that denied him the right to use the boys' restroom. As is its custom, the court did not say why it was rejecting the appeal of the Gloucester County school district. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. said they would have accepted the case. The court's decision not to take up the case does not establish a national precedent. In a 2-to-1 decision last August, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit said the school board had practiced sex-based discrimination and the 14th Amendment by prohibiting Grimm, a transgender student, from using the bathroom that aligned with his gender identity. His high school offered a single-stall restroom as an alternative." MB: The contrast between the confederate Supremes' decision & the decision of that New Jersey high school principal (story linked below) is stark. When Neil Truckers-Must-Die Gorsuch is more humane than you are, you've got a problem, Mr. Tull.

In today's Comments, contributor Patrick highlights an interview in Salon by Paul Rosenberg of Rachel Bitecofer, a political scientist who has founded "her own super PAC -- Strike PAC -- to do the kind of messaging her research suggests is key to winning elections with today's electorate." Here's one of her ads: ~~~

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Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "The United States carried out three airstrikes early Monday morning in Iraq and Syria against weapons storage facilities used by Iranian-backed militias that in recent weeks have conducted armed drone strikes against locations where the American military is, the Pentagon said on Sunday. 'At President Biden's direction, U.S. military forces earlier this evening conducted defensive precision airstrikes against facilities used by Iran-backed militia groups in the Iraq-Syria border region,' the Pentagon spokesman, John F. Kirby, said in a statement. Mr. Kirby said the facilities struck were used by Iranian-backed militias, including Kata'ib Hezbollah and Kata'ib Sayyid al-Shuhada, to carry out drone strikes against places where Americans were located. The strikes were the second time that President Biden has ordered the use of force in the region. The United States carried out airstrikes in eastern Syria in late February against buildings belonging to what the Pentagon said were Iran-backed militias responsible for recent attacks against American and allied personnel in Iraq."” ~~~

     ~~~ CNN's story, by Barbara Starr, is here. And here's the full DOD statement. ~~~

~~~ Jane Arraf & Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "The United States is grappling with a rapidly evolving threat from Iranian proxies in Iraq after militia forces specialized in operating more sophisticated weaponry, including armed drones, have hit some of the most sensitive American targets in attacks that evaded U.S. defenses. At least three times in the past two months, those militias have used small, explosive-laden drones that divebomb and crash into their targets in late-night attacks on Iraqi bases -- including those used by the C.I.A. and U.S. Special Operations units, according to American officials. Iran -- weakened by years of harsh economic sanctions -- is using its proxy militias in Iraq to step up pressure on the United States and other world powers to negotiate an easing of those sanctions as part of a revival of the 2015 nuclear deal."

Burgess Everett of Politico: "President Joe Biden's domestic agenda appears back on track in Congress, with Republicans praising his newly clarified approach to their bipartisan infrastructure plan and a key Democrat endorsing work on a separate, larger spending package. Two GOP negotiators [Mitt Romney & Rob Portman] on the bipartisan infrastructure deal said Sunday that they were mollified by Biden's Saturday statement vowing to support the bipartisan framework on its own merits, rather than withholding his signature until he also received a larger, partisan proposal. Many Republicans interpreted his remarks in the aftermath of their deal on Thursday as an implicit veto threat." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Michael Crowley of the New York Times: "Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken met Sunday with Israel's foreign minister, Yair Lapid, as the Biden administration takes the measure of Israel's new government after the departure of the country's divisive prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. The two men discussed Israel's policies toward the Palestinians and the international talks seeking to return Iran and the United States to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, about which Mr. Lapid said Israel had 'serious reservations.' But Mr. Lapid took a warm tone overall in brief remarks at the start of his meeting with Mr. Blinken, their first since Israel's new government took power on June 13, saying he hoped to repair damage incurred under Mr. Netanyahu to Israel's standing among Washington Democrats."

Rachel Siegel of the Washington Post: "The Biden administration mounted an aggressive push reshaping national housing policy in a span of 48 hours this past week, replacing a key regulator and pushing a flurry of other changes to try to address growing concerns within and outside the White House about a housing crisis for millions of renters and vulnerable Americans.... Housing has emerged as one of the most unequal and consequential parts of the economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. Low interest rates, cheap mortgages and bidding wars are fueling a housing boom for wealthier Americans and making homeownership out of reach for many first-time buyers. Meanwhile, housing is a expense and worry for millions of renters and unemployed workers, and advocates fear a wave of homelessness once the CDC's final moratorium [on evictions] lifts July 31."

Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.) in a USA Today op-ed: "The filibuster threatens the freedoms of every American, no matter the color of your skin, your gender, ZIP code, political party, or how much money you have (or don't have) in the bank. The filibuster doesn't just mean a minority of senators can block critical legislation on everything from voting rights to the minimum wage. The filibuster undermines the basic principle that makes our democracy work: government of the people, by the people, for the people. ... When we allow a political faction to block critical legislation, it takes away that voice from the voters. No matter your political party, you should know that when you win a free and fair election, your representatives can govern." Demings is running for Senate." MB: A simple, straightforward explanation of the perversity of the filibuster.

But Tlaib! Annals of Journalism, Ctd. Dominick Mastrangelo of the Hill: ""Fox News Sunday" host >Chris Wallace sparred with Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) over Banks's vote against an emergency relief bill that would have allocated funds to police and first responders. 'Can't you make the argument that it's you and the Republicans who defunded the police?' Wallace asked Banks, who is the chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee." MB: Banks' "defense" is to name-check Democratic women -- Tlaib, Omar, Pelosi -- because that's all Republicans know how to do. You would think that Republicans would have figured out that it's a bad idea to go on Chris Wallace's show armed only with lame talking points, senseless arguments, & knocks at Democrats.

Shayna Jacobs, et al., of the Washington Post: "Prosecutors in New York have given ... Donald Trump's attorneys a deadline of Monday afternoon to make any final arguments as to why the Trump Organization should not face criminal charges over its financial dealings, according to two people familiar with the matter. That deadline is a strong signal that Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. (D) and New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) -- now working together, after each has spent more than two years investigating Trump's business -- are considering criminal charges against the company as an entity.... Last Thursday, lawyers working for Trump personally and for the Trump Organization met virtually with prosecutors to make the case that charges were not warranted. Meetings like these are common in financial investigations...."

Marie: Even though I'm no fan of Jonathan Karl's, and even though I don't have a subscription to the Atlantic, where this interview is published, I'm using one of my few Atlantic freebies and linking it here. It's worth a read: ~~~

If there was evidence of fraud, I had no motive to suppress it. But my suspicion all the way along was that there was nothing there. It was all bullshit. -- Bill Barr, to Jon Karl ~~~

You know, you only have five weeks, Mr. President, after an election to make legal challenges. This would have taken a crackerjack team with a really coherent and disciplined strategy. Instead, you have a clown show. No self-respecting lawyer is going anywhere near it. It's just a joke. That's why you are where you are. -- Bill Barr, to Donald Trump, Dec. 1, 2020

~~~ Jonathan Karl, in the Atlantic: "... few betrayals have enraged [Donald Trump] more than what his attorney general did to him. To Trump, the unkindest cut of all was when William Barr stepped forward and declared [on the record, to Michael Balsamo of the AP,] that there had been no widespread fraud in the 2020 election, just as the president was trying to overturn Joe Biden's victory by claiming that the election had been stolen. In a series of interviews with me this spring, Barr spoke ... about the events surrounding his break with Trump." Barr & Mitch McConnell both confirmed to Karl that Barr had made the public statement at McConnell's request. McConnell had been telling Barr that if he -- McConnell -- made the statement, Trump would likely sabotage the two Georgia Senate runoffs. Karl relates Trump's meeting with Barr right after the Balsamo story hit the fan. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Tom Sullivan republishes some of Karl's story in Hullabaloo. John Amato of Crooks & Liars has a bit more of it. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Tom Boggioni of the Raw Story publishes some reactions to Barr's rehabilitation interview. Cheryl Rofer of Balloon Juice has more of the same. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Rick Hasen: "As is typical in pieces where people from Barr world are sources (in this case Barr himself), this paints Barr in the best possible light. The piece does not even mention how Barr put forward outrageous and ludicrous statements about voter fraud before the election, suggesting that foreign governments would be mailing in thousands of absentee ballots. Barr continues on his rehabilitation tour.... [Meanwhile,] Mitch McConnell utterly failed in squelching the Trump voter fraud claims because he was trying to preserve his Senate majority.... As Quinta Jurecic put it: '... this reads like ... the senate majority leader asking the attorney general for political help in an upcoming election. Not great!' But it's even worse than that. McConnell knew Trump's claims were bogus and endangering the country. And he refused to speak up because he put politics before country." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

~~~ Martin Pengelly of the Guardian: "Donald Trump's 'big lie' that he lost the 2020 US election because of voter fraud is 'a bit like WWF', Mitt Romney said on Sunday, referring to the gaudy and artificial world of professional wrestling, an arena in which Trump starred before entering politics. 'It's entertaining,' said the Utah senator.... 'But it's not real.' Appearing on CNN's State of the Union, Romney was asked about former attorney general William Barr's assertion to the Atlantic on Sunday that Trump's claims were always 'bullshit'.... Romney suggested most Americans have always known Trump is lying about electoral fraud, which he was told about by conspiracy theorists -- 'the MyPillow guy [Mike Lindell and] Rudy Giuliani' -- rather than any official source." Romney went on to say that autocrats around the world are using Trump's lies about the election to undermine democratic principles. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Of course Romney is wrong. As Pengelly points out, most Republican voters still believe Trump won. But worse, the January 6 insurrection probably would not have happened had Republicans all accepted Biden's win in November and isolated Trump as nearly the only Republican official in the U.S. who didn't have the guts & grace to congratulate Joe Biden.

Flynn Monetized the Crazy. Candace Rondeaux of the Intercept: "Most media outlets treated [Michael] Flynn's videotaped oath last summer, in which he uttered a well-known QAnon slogan, as a sort of coming-out story about a onetime Trump insider who had gone off the rails.... An Intercept investigation has found that Flynn's ties to the QAnon phenomenon stretch back much further than the July 4 weekend last year ... to the days immediately following Trump's 2016 election victory.... Flynn ... would go on to become a central hero in QAnon's conspiratorial narrative. But his move to trademark the term 'digital soldiers' -- ensuring that only he and others who obtain his express permission can profit from the sale of 'Digital Soldiers'-branded merchandise -- hints at his attempt to capitalize on a marketing and communication strategy that resonates with the Q community.... His push to leverage QAnon's viral popularity with the far-right coincided with his efforts to reverse his guilty plea for lying to the FBI in special counsel Robert Mueller's probe.... Previously unreported events following Flynn's November 2016 'digital soldiers' speech raise questions about his role in the origins of the QAnon movement." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: This is a detailed -- and apparently deeply-researched -- report that delves into the interconnections among Flynn & a number of other loons -- and the enterprises they spawned. In view of the fact that Flynn made the first steps down the Q road a year before the first "Q drop" makes one wonder if Michael Flynn is Q. As the Former Guy would say ... Sad.

Guess I'll Have to Duct-tape Over the Logos on My Toyota. Lachlan Markay of Axios: "Nearly three-dozen corporate PACs have donated at least $5,000 to Republicans who objected to certifying the 2020 election, yet Toyota leads by a substantial margin.... Following Jan. 6, huge segments of corporate America rethought their political-giving programs. The new numbers suggest some large companies have decided to maintain support -- even for members of Congress deeply enmeshed in the pro-Trump conspiracy theories that fueled the Capitol attack."

Capitalism Is Awesome, Ctd. Stacy Cowley & Ella Koeze of the New York Times: "Though Congress approved billions in aid for small companies to help them keep paying their employees during the pandemic..., it wasn't reaching the tiniest and neediest businesses. Then two small companies came out of nowhere and, through an astute mix of technology and advertising -- and the dogged pursuit of an opportunity that big banks missed -- found a way to help those businesses. They also helped themselves. For their work, the companies stand to collect more than $3 billion in fees, according to a New York Times analysis -- far more than any of the 5,200 participating lenders. One of the companies, Blueacorn, didn't exist before the pandemic. The other, Womply, founded a decade ago, sold marketing software. But this year, they became the breakout stars of the Paycheck Protection Program, the government's $800 billion relief effort for small businesses. Between them, the two companies processed a third of all P.P.P. loans made this year, the Times analysis found. Blueacorn and Womply aren't banks, so they couldn't actually lend any money. Rather, they acted as middlemen...."

Jason Horowitz of the New York Times: "A leader in the Roman Catholic Church's effort to reach out to L.G.B.T.Q. Catholics revealed on Sunday that Pope Francis had sent him a deeply encouraging note, capping an especially disorienting week on the Vatican's attitude toward gay rights. On Tuesday, the Vatican confirmed that it had tried to influence the affairs of the Italian state by expressing grave concerns about legislation currently in Parliament that increases protections for L.G.B.T.Q. people. And days later, the Vatican's second in command insisted the church had nothing against gay rights, but was protecting itself from leaving the church's core beliefs open to criminal charges of discrimination. Nearly eight years after Pope Francis famously responded, 'Who am I to judge?' on the issue of gay Catholics, it has become increasingly difficult to discern where he stands on the issue. A growing dissonance has developed between his inclusive language and the church's actions." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Bishops Backfire. E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post: "The decision of right-wing Catholic bishops to begin drafting a statement that many of them said was aimed at President Biden and his reception of communion was not just a rebuke to him and to other Catholic Democrats. It was also an attack on Pope Francis, who had made clear that he did not want them to go down this divisive road. And it reinforced the suspicions of the church among progressive-leaning young people already alienated from Christian institutions that champion extreme forms of conservative politics.... That this is even an issue shows how the viruses of the political right have infected the U.S. church leadership."

Adam Clymer of the New York Times: "Mike Gravel, a two-term Democratic senator from Alaska who played a central role in 1970s legislation to build the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline but who was perhaps better known as an unabashed attention-getter, in one case reading the Pentagon Papers aloud at a hearing at a time when newspapers were barred from publishing them and later mounting long-shot presidential runs, died on Saturday at his home in Seaside, Calif. He was 91." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

The Pandemic, Ctd.

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.

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Sunday are here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Beyond the Beltway

Florida. James Glanz, et al., of the New York Times: "The investigation into what may be the deadliest accidental building collapse in American history has just begun, but experts who have examined video footage of the disaster outside Miami are focusing on a spot in the lowest part of the condominium complex -- possibly in or below the underground parking garage -- where an initial failure could have set off a structural avalanche. Called 'progressive collapse,' the gradual spread of failures could have occurred for a variety of reasons, including design flaws or the less robust construction allowed under the building codes of four decades ago, when the complex was built. But that progression could not have occurred without some critical first failure, and close inspections of a grainy surveillance video that emerged in the initial hours after the disaster have given the first hints of where that might have been."

New Jersey. The School District Should Fire This High School Principal. Right Away. Alyssa Lukpat of the New York Times: "Less than a minute into Bryce Dershem's valedictorian speech on June 17, the microphone cut out. He had just told the audience at his New Jersey high school's graduation ceremony that he came out as queer in his freshman year. When he made that revelation, the principal, Robert M. Tull, went to the back of the stage and appeared to unplug some cords, a video from the ceremony shows.... Mr. Tull walked onstage and took the microphone from its stand.... He also took Mr. Dershem's prepared remarks.... Mr. Tull pointed to another copy of the speech on the podium that did not have any references to sexuality or mental health.... A replacement microphone was brought to Mr. Dershem.... Then his classmates at Eastern Regional High School in Voorhees Township, N.J., cheered for him to continue his speech.... Mr. Dershem knew every word of his own version of the speech, because he had been working on his remarks for a month.... The principal and Mr. Dershem had been debating the contents of the speech for weeks, Mr. Dershem said." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: The short video that accompanies the article shows Tull silencing Dershem. Tull is Black. He knows first-hand what discrimination feels like. But he thought it was fine to discriminate against a vulnerable kid, a kid who had excelled in his studies. According to the NYT story, "Robert Cloutier, the superintendent of the Eastern Camden County Regional School District, told The Philadelphia Inquirer that the district had not asked any students to remove mentions of 'their personal identity' from their speeches." Tull has no excuse for his behavior. An apology? Sensitivity training? Not enough. Tull needs a job where he has no contact with other human beings.

News Lede

The New York Times is liveblogging developments today in the Surfside, Florida, condominium collapse.

The Commentariat -- June 27, 2021

Afternoon Update:

Burgess Everett of Politico: "President Joe Biden's domestic agenda appears back on track in Congress, with Republicans praising his newly clarified approach to their bipartisan infrastructure plan and a key Democrat endorsing work on a separate, larger spending package. Two GOP negotiators [Mitt Romney & Rob Portman] on the bipartisan infrastructure deal said Sunday that they were mollified by Biden's Saturday statement vowing to support the bipartisan framework on its own merits, rather than withholding his signature until he also received a larger, partisan proposal. Many Republicans interpreted his remarks in the aftermath of their deal on Thursday as an implicit veto threat."

Marie: Even though I'm no fan of Jonathan Karl's, and even though I don't have a subscription to the Atlantic, where this interview is published, I'm using one of my few Atlantic freebies and linking it here. It's worth a read: ~~~

If there was evidence of fraud, I had no motive to suppress it. But my suspicion all the way along was that there was nothing there. It was all bullshit. -- Bill Barr, to Jon Karl ~~~

You know, you only have five weeks, Mr. President, after an election to make legal challenges. This would have taken a crackerjack team with a really coherent and disciplined strategy. Instead, you have a clown show. No self-respecting lawyer is going anywhere near it. It's just a joke. That's why you are where you are. -- Bill Barr, to Donald Trump, Dec. 1, 2020

~~~ Jonathan Karl, in the Atlantic: "... few betrayals have enraged [Donald Trump] more than what his attorney general did to him. To Trump, the unkindest cut of all was when William Barr stepped forward and declared [on the record, to Michael Balsamo of the AP,] that there had been no widespread fraud in the 2020 election, just as the president was trying to overturn Joe Biden's victory by claiming that the election had been stolen. In a series of interviews with me this spring, Barr spoke ... about the events surrounding his break with Trump." Barr & Mitch McConnell both confirmed to Karl that Barr had made the public statement at McConnell's request. McConnell had been telling Barr that if he -- McConnell -- made the statement, Trump might sabotage the two Georgia Senate runoffs. Karl relates Trump's meeting with Barr right after the Balsamo story hit the fan. ~~~

     ~~~ Tom Sullivan republishes some of Karl's story in Hullabaloo. John Amato of Crooks & Liars has a bit more of it. ~~~

     ~~~ Tom Boggioni of the Raw Story publishes some reactions to Barr's rehabilitation interview. Cheryl Rofer of Balloon Juice has more of the same. ~~~

     ~~~ Rick Hasen: "As is typical in pieces where people from Barr world are sources (in this case Barr himself), this paints Barr in the best possible light. The piece does not even mention how Barr put forward outrageous and ludicrous statements about voter fraud before the election, suggesting that foreign governments would be mailing in thousands of absentee ballots. Barr continues on his rehabilitation tour.... [Meanwhile,] Mitch McConnell utterly failed in squelching the Trump voter fraud claims because he was trying to preserve his Senate majority.... As Quinta Jurecic put it: '... this reads like ... the senate majority leader asking the attorney general for political help in an upcoming election. Not great!' But it's even worse than that. McConnell knew Trump's claims were bogus and endangering the country. And he refused to speak up because he put politics before country."

~~~ Martin Pengelly of the Guardian: "Donald Trump's 'big lie' that he lost the 2020 US election because of voter fraud is 'a bit like WWF', Mitt Romney said on Sunday, referring to the gaudy and artificial world of professional wrestling, an arena in which Trump starred before entering politics. 'It's entertaining,' said the Utah senator and 2012 Republican presidential nominee. 'But it's not real.' Appearing on CNN's State of the Union, Romney was asked about former attorney general William Barr's assertion to the Atlantic on Sunday that Trump's claims were always 'bullshit'.... Romney suggested most Americans have always known Trump is lying about electoral fraud, which he was told about by conspiracy theorists -- 'the MyPillow guy [Mike Lindell and] Rudy Giuliani' -- rather than any official source." Romney went on to say that autocrats around the world are using Trump's lies about the election to undermine democratic principles. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Of course Romney is wrong. As Pengelly points out, most Republican voters still believe Trump won. But worse, the January 6 insurrection probably would not have happened had Republicans all accepted Biden's win in November and isolated Trump as nearly the only Republican official in the U.S. who didn't have the guts & grace to congratulate Joe Biden.

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Sunday is here.

Adam Clymer of the New York Times: "Mike Gravel, a two-term Democratic senator from Alaska who played a central role in 1970s legislation to build the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline but who was perhaps better known as an unabashed attention-getter, in one case reading the Pentagon Papers aloud at a hearing at a time when newspapers were barred from publishing them and later mounting long-shot presidential runs, died on Saturday at his home in Seaside, Calif. He was 91."

Jason Horowitz of the New York Times: "A leader in the Roman Catholic Church's effort to reach out to L.G.B.T.Q. Catholics revealed on Sunday that Pope Francis had sent him a deeply encouraging note, capping an especially disorienting week on the Vatican's attitude toward gay rights. On Tuesday, the Vatican confirmed that it had tried to influence the affairs of the Italian state by expressing grave concerns about legislation currently in Parliament that increases protections for L.G.B.T.Q. people. And days later, the Vatican's second in command insisted the church had nothing against gay rights, but was protecting itself from leaving the church's core beliefs open to criminal charges of discrimination. Nearly eight years after Pope Francis famously responded, 'Who am I to judge?' on the issue of gay Catholics, it has become increasingly difficult to discern where he stands on the issue. A growing dissonance has developed between his inclusive language and the church's actions."

~~~~~~~~~~

Emily Cochrane, et al., of the New York Times: "... in a stray comment during a news conference [Thursday] an hour [after announcing a bipartisan infrastructure deal], the president blurted out that he would not approve the compromise bill without the partisan one. 'If this is the only thing that comes to me, I'm not signing it,' he said, answering a question about the timing of his legislative agenda. 'I'm not just signing the bipartisan bill and forgetting about the rest.'... It was enough to upend Mr. Biden's proud bipartisan moment.... 'We never had an inkling that there would be any kind of linkage,' Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine and a key negotiator, said in an interview.... Liberal Democrats scoffed at the Republican frustration and accused their counterparts of looking for an excuse to oppose the deal, even though the Democrats' pursuit of reconciliation had long been public.... The drama does not appear to have sunk the deal, but Mr. Biden admitted that his comments on Thursday left 'the impression that I was issuing a veto threat on the very plan I had just agreed to.' That was 'certainly not my intent.'..." he added.... On Saturday, Mr. Biden finally acknowledged his mistake as lawmakers and aides signaled they would move forward with writing text and securing support. 'The bottom line is this,' he said. 'I gave my word to support the infrastructure plan, and that's what I intend to do. I intend to pursue the passage of that plan, which Democrats and Republicans agreed to on Thursday, with vigor.'" ~~~

~~~ Natasha Korecki & Christopher Cadelago of Politico: "Not 48 hours after President Joe Biden had appeared to seal a landmark deal with Republicans, he was on the phone trying to save it. Biden himself was making calls to members of Congress in an effort to salvage a nearly $600 billion infrastructure package, two people with knowledge of the calls said. That was just one of the many steps Biden, top aides and allies were taking to avoid an unraveling of an agreement after the president in a press availability infuriated Republicans by threatening not to sign it if he wasn't also sent a Democrat-only spending bill. Biden acknowledged he erred in a lengthy statement he released on Saturday where he issued a complete reversal to his previous comments." ~~~

     ~~~ Here's President Biden's statement.

Pride is back at the White House. -- President Biden, Friday ~~~

~~~ Annie Linskey of the Washington Post: "Standing at a lectern adorned with the presidential seal in the East Room of the White House, a transgender activist announced his pronouns before introducing the president. President Biden started his remarks by wishing a belated happy birthday to the husband of Pete Buttigieg, his transportation secretary. Later, the commander in chief of the world's most powerful military recognized a transgender lieutenant colonel who attended in full dress uniform, saying to her, 'Thank you for your service to our nation.' Those acts were part of an event billed by the White House as a commemoration of LGBTQ+ Pride Month, and each would have prompted headlines just a few years ago -- and some just a few months ago. Yet on Friday, none of it was particularly remarkable.... A key part of Biden's remarks was a call to the Senate to pass the Equality Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, sexual orientation and gender identity. 'Our work is unfinished when a same-sex couple can be married in the morning but denied a lease in the afternoon for being gay,' Biden said, urging Senate approval. 'Something is still wrong.'" Politico's report is here.

Hanna Trudo of the Hill: "Democrats pressuring Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) to abandon her defense of the filibuster say there's little evidence to support her recent argument that getting rid of it would be an invitation for partisan seesawing on major legislation. ObamaCare has endured the test of time, the Democrats note. And while there might be some nibbling on former President Trump's tax-cut law without a filibuster and Democrats in control of the White House and Congress, large portions of the law are considered safe. Such lasting legislative victories suggest Sinema is wrong, the Democrats say, when she argues that ending the procedural Senate rule would prevent Republicans or Democrats from passing laws that have proven to be durable."

Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "For weeks, Michael Fanone, a Washington police officer who was seriously injured during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, had asked to meet privately with Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the top House Republican, to discuss the assault, to no avail. So on Friday, when Officer Fanone finally got his session with Mr. McCarthy at the Capitol, he had a clear request at the ready: for the minority leader to publicly denounce the lies Republican lawmakers have been telling about the deadly attack.... He wanted Mr. McCarthy to push them to stop downplaying the storming of the building, blaming left-wing extremists for an assault carried out by ... Donald J. Trump's right-wing supporters and spreading the baseless conspiracy theory that the F.B.I. secretly planned it. He came away disappointed. 'He said he would address it at a personal level, with some of those members,' Officer Fanone told reporters after the roughly hourlong meeting. 'I think that as the leader of the House Republican Party, it's important to hear those denouncements publicly.' Mr. McCarthy, who phoned Mr. Trump during the riot to plead with him to call off the mob and days later said the president bore responsibility for the rampage, has since swung wildly in the other direction.&" The AP's story is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Don't know how I missed this, but I did: ~~~

~~~ Katelyn Polantz of CNN (June 23): "An alleged member of the Oath Keepers pleaded guilty on Wednesday to charges related to the January 6 insurrection, the first plea deal among the Capitol riot cases against extremist groups. Graydon Young, a 54-year-old from Florida who went by 'GenXPatriot,' is charged in a 16-person conspiracy case alleging members of the Oath Keepers plotted to carry out the January 6 insurrection. It is the first guilty plea among any defendants in the major Capitol riot conspiracy cases and is a significant development as investigators continue to pursue leads on extremist groups that they believe planned for an armed attack to help ... Donald Trump and stop Congress from certifying the 2020 election."

To Protect & Serve. Chris Joyner of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "When FBI agents in San Diego seized the cell phone of a suspected white supremacist last year, they discovered text messages with a Georgia sheriff's deputy boasting of racial violence and preparations for a civil war. The text message chain, called 'Shadow Moses,' between San Diego plumber Grey Zamudio, 33, and 28-year-old Cody Griggers, a former Marine and sheriff's deputy in Wilkinson County, revealed plans to steal explosives, dry runs with illegal silencers and boasts of racial violence.... Twin federal investigations resulted in the arrests and guilty pleas of G[r]iggers and Zamudio on illegal weapons charges that could put them in federal prison for a decade. Zamudio will be sentenced in July; Griggers in August. But Griggers' involvement shines a light on the growing concern inside the intelligence community about the far-right radicalization of service members and law enforcement officers.... The FBI described 'Shadow Moses' ... as a 'prepper' group where Griggers, Zamudio and possibly others discussed building illegal weapons, acquiring explosives, and plotting potential attacks. It was also where they expressed their white supremacist and anti-Semitic beliefs." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: If there's one humorous note here it's that these anti-Semites are so stupid they don't seem to know that "real" Moses was Jewish. (I could be wrong here, but to find out, I'd have to learn way more about military video games than I care to know.) In the meantime, guys like Griggers are why I've always been afraid of the cops.

** Republicans, Still "Protecting Democracy Against 'Negro Domination.'" Adam Serwer Atlantic, in a New York Times op-ed: "Donald Trump has claimed credit for any number of things he benefited from but did not create, and the Republican Party's reigning ideology is one of them: a politics of cruelty and exclusion that strategically exploits vulnerable Americans by portraying them as an existential threat, against whom acts of barbarism and disenfranchisement become not only justified but worthy of celebration. This approach has a long history in American politics. The most consistent threat to our democracy has always been the drive of some leaders to restrict its blessings to a select few. This is why Joe Biden beat Mr. Trump but has not vanquished Trumpism. Mr. Trump's main innovation was showing Republicans how much they could get away with...."

If you'd care to read about Trump's first MAGA rally since voters forcibly removed him from the White House, Meredith McGraw of Politico obliges with this report.

Because Everything They Did Was Corrupt. Alex Guillen of Politico: "Two high-ranking Trump political appointees at the Environmental Protection Agency arranged for a pair of agency employees to reap tens of thousands of dollars in salaries even after they were fired, according to a report from EPA's Office of Inspector General. The improper payments were directed by former chief of staff Ryan Jackson and carried out by former White House liaison Charles Munoz, and totaled almost $38,000, according to the March report obtained by Politico via a Freedom of Information Act request. In addition, Munoz also received an improper raise and submitted 'fraudulent timesheets' that cost EPA almost $96,000, the OIG calculated. Federal prosecutors declined to press charges over any of the OIG's findings, and both men have since left the agency -- Jackson in February 2020 to be vice president for government and political affairs at the National Mining Association, and Munoz on Jan. 20, when the Biden administration took office." MB: The National Mining Association? Perfect.

Sarah Nir of the New York Times: "Johnson & Johnson will pay New York State more than $230 million in a settlement that also ensures the company will permanently get out of the opioid business in the United States, the state attorney general's office announced on Saturday. The settlement comes at a time when the opioid industry is facing over 3,000 lawsuits across the nation for its contribution to an epidemic of prescription and street opioid abuse that has killed more than 800,00 Americans in the last 20 years, according to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And it came just days before opening arguments in a sweeping New York trial in which the company was to be a defendant. That trial will be the first of its kind to go before a jury, and the first targeting the entire opioid supply chain, from the drugmakers who manufactured the pills, to the distributors that supplied them, and a pharmacy chain that filled prescriptions for them." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

The Pandemic, Ctd.

Jan Hoffman of the New York Times: "The vaccination of children is crucial to achieving broad immunity to the coronavirus and returning to normal school and work routines. But though Covid vaccines have been authorized for children as young as 12, many parents, worried about side effects and frightened by the newness of the shots, have held off from permitting their children to get them. A recent poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that only three in 10 parents of children between the ages of 12 through 17 intended to allow them to be vaccinated immediately.... But with many teenagers eager to get shots that they see as unlocking freedoms denied during the pandemic, tensions are crackling in homes in which parents are holding to a hard no. Forty states require parental consent for vaccination of minors under 18, and Nebraska sets the age at 19.... Now, because of the Covid crisis, some states and cities are seeking to relax medical consent rules, emulating statutes that permit minors to obtain the HPV vaccine.... Increasingly, frustrated teenagers are searching for ways to be vaccinated without their parents' consent." MB: Where are you, CDC?

Berkeley Lovelace of CNBC: "The World Health Organization on Friday urged fully vaccinated people to continue to wear masks, social distance and practice other Covid-19 pandemic safety measures as the highly contagious delta variant spreads rapidly across the globe." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Carl Zimmer of the New York Times: "Researchers have found evidence that a coronavirus epidemic swept East Asia some 20,000 years ago and was devastating enough to leave an evolutionary imprint on the DNA of people alive today. The new study suggests that an ancient coronavirus plagued the region for many years, researchers say. The finding could have dire implications for the Covid-19 pandemic if it's not brought under control soon through vaccination.... 'What is going on right now might be going on for generations and generations,' ... said David Enard, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona.... Scientists looking for drugs to fight the new coronavirus might want to scrutinize the 42 genes that evolved in response to the ancient epidemic, Dr. [Yassine] Souilmi [of the University of Adelaide in Australia] said." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Scientists make really amazing discoveries. I hope a lot of them will get to work on a cure for the stupid gene, the one that makes people denigrate science & scientists.

Beyond the Beltway

Florida. Mike Baker & Anjali Singhvi of the New York Times: "Three years before the deadly collapse of the Champlain Towers South condominium complex near Miami, a consultant found alarming evidence of 'major structural damage' to the concrete slab below the pool deck and 'abundant' cracking and crumbling of the columns, beams and walls of the parking garage under the 13-story building. The engineer's report helped shape plans for a multimillion-dollar repair project that was set to get underway soon -- more than two and a half years after the building managers were warned -- but the building suffered a catastrophic collapse in the middle of the night on Thursday, trapping sleeping residents in a massive heap of debris. The complex's management association had disclosed some of the problems in the wake of the collapse, but it was not until city officials released the 2018 report late Friday that the full nature of the concrete and rebar damage -- most of it probably caused by years of exposure to the corrosive salt air along the South Florida coast -- became chillingly apparent." The AP's story is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Steven Mufson, et al., of the Washington Post: "Surfside officials worried about the potential for new disasters ordered inspections of buildings near the collapsed Champlain Towers South on Saturday, as fires at the disaster site smoldered and hopes of finding survivors faded. Rescue workers, armed with sonar and cameras, found three more sets of remains, bringing the total to five people dead and 156 others missing inside a haphazard heap of concrete and steel rebar. Officials warned that picking apart the heavy sandwiched apartments was a delicate and dangerous task and that progress would be slow. Officials said DNA samples collected from relatives of the missing would help in the speedy identification of those found.... Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett suggested residents of Champlain Towers North evacuate.... Miami-Dade County will launch an audit of all buildings five or more stories high and 40 years and older, Mayor Daniella Levine Cava announced at a Saturday morning news conference.... The collapse in Surfside could be a wake-up call for towns along America's coastlines." ~~~

~~~ Russ Bynum & Freida Frisaro of the AP: "The mayor of Surfside, Florida, said Saturday he is working on a plan to temporarily relocate residents of a condominium tower built by the same developer of the nearby building that collapsed earlier in the week. But Mayor Charles Burkett said he was not yet prepared to order everyone in the building to evacuate. Burkett had sought an emergency inspection of Champlain Towers North, which was constructed the same year and by the same developer as the crumbled 12-story Champlain Towers South. It sits about 100 yards (about 91 meters) away, along Collins Avenue, which runs parallel to the Atlantic Ocean north of downtown Miami."

Texas. Cassandra Pollock of the Texas Tribune: "A group that includes Texas House Democrats and legislative staffers is asking the Texas Supreme Court to override Gov. Greg Abbott's recent veto of a portion of the state budget that funds the Legislature, staffers there and legislative agencies. More than 60 Democratic members of the House signed a petition for a writ of mandamus, which was filed Friday morning, as did the House Democratic Caucus and the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, four state employees and the Texas AFL-CIO.... The petition argues that Abbott exceeded his executive authority and violated the state's separation of powers doctrine." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Since 1961 was the last time I had to know what a "writ of mandamus" was, I looked it up on the Googles: "A writ of mandamus ... is a court order issued by a judge at a petitioner's request compelling any government, corporation, or public authority to execute a duty that they are legally obligated to complete." So thanks, Greg, I guess.

Way Beyond

Turkey. MEANWHILE, in Istanbul. Kareem Fahim & Antonia Farzan of the Washington Post: "Riot police used tear gas and rubber bullets to disrupt the annual Pride parade, intensifying a crackdown on the march at a time of rising government hostility toward LGBTQ individuals in Turkey, advocacy groups say. At least 20 people were detained, local media reported. The Istanbul governor's office had refused to grant a permit for the parade, which has been held since 2003 but banned for the last seven years. Even so, hundreds of people, many waving rainbow flags, marched Saturday in the city's historical Beyoglu district, playing cat-and-mouse in back alleys with battalions of police officers who tried to prevent them from congregating on Istiklal Avenue, a hub for shopping and tourism."

U.K. Oops! Sex in the Age of Covid. Toby Helm, et al., of the Guardian: "Matt Hancock has resigned as health secretary after Tory MPs, ministers and grassroots Conservatives defied Boris Johnson and demanded he be dismissed from the government. The minister fell on his sword after a day that began with senior Tories observing a deliberate silence over Hancock's future -- seemingly to test public opinion in their constituencies -- before many later broke ranks to insist he had to go.... It is understood that Hancock had been considering resigning since Friday after his apology for kissing his closest aide, Gina Coladangelo, in his ministerial office -- in breach of his own Covid-19 rules -- failed to quell public outrage. The resignation is a massive blow to the authority of the prime minister, who had stood by the 42-year-old following his apology, declaring the matter to be 'closed'.... There were also reports that Hancock had told his wife of 15 years on Thursday night that he was leaving her. Before the story of his affair was reported in the Sun, Martha Hancock is said to have been unaware of it. It is understood that Coladangelo is also leaving her role as a non-executive director of the health department...." MB: But, but they had their shots!

News Lede

The New York Times is liveblogging developments in the Surfside, Florida condominium collapse.