The Commentariat -- May 24, 2021

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Juliet Eilperin & Brady Dennis of the Washington Post: "President Biden will announce Monday afternoon that he's doubling the amount of money the U.S. government will spend helping communities prepare for extreme weather events, while launching a new effort at NASA to collect more sophisticated climate data. While the $1 billion in funding is a fraction of what taxpayers spend each year on disasters, it underscores a broader effort to account for the damage wrought by climate change and curb it. Last week the president signed an executive order instructing federal agencies to identify and disclose the perils a warming world poses to federal programs, assets and liabilities, while also requiring federal suppliers to reveal their own climate-related risks."

Uh, Bon Chance, Tony. Matthew Lee of the AP: "Secretary of State Antony Blinken will head to the Middle East on Monday to press the Israelis, Palestinians and regional players to build on and strengthen last week's Gaza cease-fire, start an immediate flow of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip and lay the groundwork for an eventual resumption in long-stalled peace talks. President Joe Biden announced that he was dispatching Blinken to the region for what will be his administration's highest-level, in-person talks on the crisis that erupted earlier this month. The State Department said Blinken will visit Israel, the West Bank, Jordan and Egypt on a trip that comes as the administration has faced broad criticism for its initial response to the deadly violence."

John Hudson of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump's former ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, is suing former secretary of state Mike Pompeo and the U.S. government for $1.8 million to compensate for legal fees incurred during the 2019 House impeachment probe. The suit, filed Monday in federal court in the District of Columbia, alleges that Pompeo reneged on his promise that the State Department would cover the fees after Sondland delivered bombshell testimony accusing Trump and his aides of pressuring the government of Ukraine to investigate then presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter in exchange for military aid. Sondland, a Portland hotel magnate appointed by Trump to serve as ambassador, became a key witness of the impeachment probe because of his firsthand knowledge of conversations with Trump, his attorney Rudy Giuliani and senior Ukrainian officials -- as well as his punchy answers, affable demeanor and colorful language." Thanks to Ken W. for the link. Update: Politico's story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: The suit accuses Pompeo of corruption: Pompeo's promise, Sondland argues, "was self-serving, made entirely for personal reasons for his own political survival in the hopes that Ambassador Sondland would not implicate him or others by his testimony": that is, the "deal" was that if Sondland testified the way Pompeo wanted him to, he would get his attorneys' fees paid as a sort of "bonus." Pompeo, of course, would require Sondland to perjure himself, which in fact he did, before he drastically modified his testimony upon learning of evidence against his fake version of events. Sondland's decision to dump the fake Trump narrative & tell a tale approximating the truth cost him the promised bonus. The offer of attorneys' fees, then, whether or not the State Department ever would pay them under any circumstances, constituted a bribe to testify falsely. This suit may be a loser, but with any luck, it will provide us with some laughs. So far, the funniest bit is that Sondland thought that -- after casting his lot with a den of corrupt politicians -- there was honor among corrupt politicians.

Michigan. David Eggert of the AP: "Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's administration on Monday rescinded a rule that limits restaurant tables to no more than six people, a day after she apologized for violating the COVID-19 regulation while gathering with friends at an East Lansing bar. The Democratic governor has said tables at the Landshark Bar & Grill were pushed together as more people arrived in her party of roughly a dozen fully vaccinated people." MB: Still, "governor" is a pretty good gig: break your own rule, then rescind it.

Michael Birnbaum & Isabelle Khurshudyan of the Washington Post: "Belarus on Monday was facing international isolation, with European leaders discussing measures to deal a crushing blow to the economy and the White House calling for an investigation, a day after Belarusian authorities forced down a civilian jet and pulled off a dissident journalist. Outrage mounted about the brazen move by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who on Sunday sent a MiG-29 fighter jet to snatch a Ryanair plane out of the sky as it was flying from Athens to Vilnius and arrest one of its passengers, Roman Protasevich, the founder of an opposition media outlet. Protasevich faces at least 12 years in prison. The power play set a fearsome precedent for journalists and political opponents, who must now worry about flying through the airspace of repressive regimes, even if they are moving from one free capital to another." CNN's story is here.

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Devan Cole of CNN: "White House senior adviser Cedric Richmond said Sunday that President Joe Biden will 'change course' on his massive infrastructure bill if inaction on the costly proposal seems inevitable. 'He wants a deal. He wants it soon, but if there's meaningful negotiations taking place in a bipartisan manner, he's willing to let that play out. But again, he will not let inaction be the answer. And when he gets to the point where it looks like that is inevitable, you'll see him change course," Richmond told CNN's Dana Bash...." ~~~

~~~ Hannah Maio of CNBC: "A group of Republican and Democratic senators unveiled a transportation package over the weekend that would increase funding for highways, roads and bridges as Congress searches for bipartisan paths to repair the nation's infrastructure. The legislation, released by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, would increase funding by 34% to a baseline of about $300 billion over five years. The previous authorization expired in 2020 and Congress passed a one-year extension which is up in September.... The bipartisan proposal is backed by committee chair Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., [and ranking member Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va.,] as well as the chair and ranking members of the transportation subcommittee, Sens. Ben Cardin, D-Md., and Kevin Cramer, R-.N.D." MB: This is just a portion of President Biden's much broader infrastructure bill.

Anita Kumar of Politico: "Conservative groups have launched a campaign of TV ads, social media messages and emails to supporters criticizing [President Biden's] proposal to hire nearly 87,000 new IRS workers over the next decade to collect money from tax cheats. They accuse the Biden administration of pushing for the IRS expansion as a way to raise taxes, increase dues paid to left-leaning unions, and increase oversight on political organizations.... Biden and fellow Democrats have held out hope that the $80 billion proposal to crack down on tax evasion by high-earners and large corporations could be an area of agreement between the two parties, even if the GOP is skeptical about the amount it could raise." MB: This latest lie designed to help the rich is being organized by "Marc Short, former chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence and founder of the new group Coalition to Protect American Workers."

Michelle Cottle of the New York Times: "... Kevin McCarthy, the House Republican leader, is frequently derided as a weak, hollow, craven, opportunistic, transactional, nakedly ambitious political animal with no core principles.... Mr. McCarthy has long done whatever it takes to get what he wants. And what he really, really wants now is the speaker's gavel.... If Mitch McConnell, the ruthless, calculating Senate Republican leader, is a shark, Mr. McCarthy is a jellyfish, carried spinelessly along by the political currents. But these days, such inchoate non-leadership is the best that House Republicans can hope for. In fact, that's what they demand.... If anyone can manage the necessary mix of political nihilism and constant self-abasement, it will be Kevin McCarthy."

Jason Wilson of the Guardian: "Washington's Metropolitan police department recorded threats to lawmakers and public facilities in the wake of the 6 January attack on the Capitol, according to documents made public in a ransomware hack on their systems this month. The documents also show how, in the month following the Capitol attack, police stepped up surveillance efforts ... for signs of another attack by far-right groups on targets in the capital, including events surrounding the inauguration of Joe Biden as president. The revelation of the seriousness of the threats comes amid Republican opposition to forming a 9/11-style commission to investigate the January attack, which saw the Capitol roamed by looting mobs hunting for politicians and involved the deaths of five people. The police documents were stolen and published by the ransomware attack group Babuk, and some were redistributed by the transparency organization Distributed Denial of Secrets...."

Travis Gettys of the Raw Story: Right-wing WashPo columnist George Will "appeared on ABC News' 'This Week,' where he told the roundtable participants that the bipartisan commission to investigate the causes of the deadly riot was controversial among Republicans for one reason. 'We have something new in American history,' Will said. 'We have a political party defined by the terror it feels for its own voters. That's the Republican Party right now.'... Every elected official is ... afraid that a vote for this would be seen as an insult to the 45th president.... I would like to see January 6th burned into the American mind as firmly as 9/11 because it was that scale of a shock to the system.'...'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

John Harwood of CNN: In 2012, Tom Mann & Norm Ornstein wrote a Washington Post op-ed which concluded "that the GOP had become 'ideologically extreme, scornful of compromise, unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science, dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.... "Let's just say it: The Republicans are the problem.'... [The essay] did not gain wide acceptance then. Many journalists joined leading Republicans in dismissing them.... [But] piece demonstrates more than the foresight of its political scientist authors.... It shows the disease within the Republican Party had spread long before Trump metastasized it." MB: Of course the Constant Weader linked the op-ed here. I don't think it surprised any Reality Chex readers. The only thing about it that surprised me is that Mann & Ornstein had the guts to write it, especially in the heyday of both-sider "journalism." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Zach Montellaro of Politico: "Republicans who sought to undercut or overturn President Joe Biden's election win are launching campaigns to become their states' top election officials next year, alarming local officeholders and opponents who are warning about pro-Trump, 'ends justify the means' candidates taking big roles in running the vote. The candidates include Rep. Jody Hice of Georgia, a leader of the congressional Republicans who voted against certifying the 2020 Electoral College results; Arizona state Rep. Mark Finchem, one of the top proponents of the conspiracy-tinged vote audit in Arizona's largest county; Nevada's Jim Marchant, who sued to have his 5-point congressional loss last year overturned; and Michigan's Kristina Karamo, who made dozens of appearances in conservative media to claim fraud in the election. Now, they are running for secretary of state in key battlegrounds that could decide control of Congress in 2022 -- and who wins the White House in 2024.... The campaigns set up the possibility that politicians who have taken steps to undermine faith in the American democratic system could soon be the ones running it."

Goodbye to All That. After decades of being at the center of Washington, D.C., society, Sally Quinn writes in the Washington Post's magazine: "I don't think Washington's social scene after Trump and covid will ever be the same. We almost lost our democracy, and many even lost their lives. If nothing else, what we've been through surely focused the mind on what is important." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

The Pandemic, Ctd.

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

Harry Enten of CNN: "... the vaccination rates by state show us that even the race to protect people from the coronavirus has fallen along familiar political lines. Take a look at the states that are leading the way for adults (18 years or older) with at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccines, as of Thursday's CDC report. Of the top 25 states in terms of percentage vaccinated, President Joe Biden won 21 of them in the 2020 election. Just four of the top 25 states for vaccination were won by ... Donald Trump last election. Trump won 21 of the bottom 25 for vaccinations. This includes 16 of the bottom 17 states.... The correlation between vaccination rates and the 2020 election outcome by state has only strengthened over time, as supplies have overtaken demand.... Aall of the top 20 [states went for Biden]." MB: That's because a lot of Republicans are like this self-certified ophthalmologist & obnoxious know-it-all from Kentucky: ~~~

~~~ Allan Smith of NBC News: "Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said Sunday that he is not getting vaccinated because he has already had Covid-19. Speaking with a conservative host on WABC radio in New York, Paul, an ophthalmologist, said he won't change his mind unless 'they show me evidence that people who have already had the infection are dying in large numbers or being hospitalized or getting very sick.'... The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that people who have been infected still get vaccinated because experts are not certain how long natural immunity lasts." MB: IOW, too bad for anybody I might infect. Chuck Schumer should not allow Li'l Randy onto the Senate floor. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I can't say I learned nothing from Li'l Randy. I can almost spell "ophthalmologist" without looking it up now.

China. Natasha Bertrand, et al., of CNN: "A US intelligence report found that several researchers at China's Wuhan Institute of Virology fell ill in November 2019 and had to be hospitalized, a new detail about the severity of their symptoms that could fuel further debate about the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, according to two people briefed on the intelligence. A State Department fact sheet released by the Trump administration in January said that the researchers had gotten sick in autumn 2019 but did not go as far as to say they had been hospitalized. China reported to the World Health Organization that the first patient with Covid-like symptoms was recorded in Wuhan on December 8, 2019.... Importantly, the intelligence community still does not know what the researchers were actually sick with, said the people briefed, and continues to have low confidence in its assessments of the virus' precise origins beyond the fact that it came from China."

Beyond the Beltway

Minnesota. Mohamed Ibrahim of the AP: "Members of George Floyd's family, and others who lost loved ones to police encounters, joined activists and citizens in Minneapolis on Sunday for a march that was one of several events planned nationwide to mark the one-year anniversary of Floyd's death. Hundreds of people gathered for the rally in front of the courthouse in downtown Minneapolis where the Chauvin trial concluded a month ago, many carrying signs with pictures of Floyd, Philando Castile and other Black men killed by police."

Texas. Alexa Ura, et al., of the Texas Tribune: "The number of Election Day polling places in largely Democratic parts of major Texas counties would fall dramatically under a Republican proposal to change how Texas polling sites are distributed, a Texas Tribune analysis shows. Voting options would be curtailed most in areas with higher shares of voters of color. Relocating polling sites is part of the GOP's priority voting bill -- Senate Bill 7 -- as it was passed in the Texas Senate. It would create a new formula for setting polling places in the handful of mostly Democratic counties with a population of 1 million or more. Although the provision was removed from the bill when passed in the House, it remains on the table as a conference committee of lawmakers begins hammering out a final version of the bill behind closed doors."

Way Beyond

Belarus. Anton Troianovski & Ivan Nechepurenko of the New York Times: "The strongman president of Belarus sent a fighter jet to intercept a European airliner traveling through the country's airspace on Sunday and ordered the plane to land in the capital, Minsk, where [Roman Protasevicha,] a prominent opposition journalist aboard was then seized, provoking international outrage. The stunning gambit by Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, a brutal and erratic leader who has clung to power despite huge protests against his government last year, was condemned by European officials, who compared it to hijacking. But it underscored that with the support of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, Mr. Lukashenko is prepared to go to extraordinary lengths to repress dissent." The AP's story is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

 ~~~ David Cohen of Politico: "Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday condemned Belarus for forcing down a civilian airliner over its airspace in order to arrest a dissident on the flight. Faking a bomb threat, Belarus used fighter aircraft to force down a Ryanair flight and arrest journalist Raman Pratasevich."

Samoa. Michael Miller of the Washington Post: "The first woman elected prime minister of Samoa showed up for her swearing-in ceremony on Monday to find her opponents had locked the doors to prevent her from taking office. Fiame Naomi Mata'afa and her followers pitched a tent on the statehouse lawn, where she took the oath of office instead. The bizarre scenes capped six weeks of election turmoil that escalated into a constitutional crisis over the weekend as Mata'afa's fierce rival refused to cede power. 'This is an illegal takeover of government,' Mata'afa said Sunday of the efforts to keep her from office. 'Because it's a bloodless coup, people aren't so concerned or disturbed by it.'&" MB: I'm surprised Trump didn't just lock the White House doors (and I'm only half-kidding).

U.K. Edna Mohamed of the Guardian: "The Black Lives Matter activist Sasha Johnson is in a critical condition after sustaining a gunshot wound to her head in an incident in south London, her affiliated group, Taking the Initiative party, has announced on social media. In a statement on the group's Facebook page, the party said the incident happened in the early hours of Sunday and followed 'numerous death threats'. A Met police statement said there was nothing to suggest that it had been a targeted attack."

The Commentariat -- May 23, 2021

Afternoon Update:

Travis Gettys of the Raw Story: Right-wing WashPo columnist George Will "appeared on ABC News' 'This Week,' where he told the roundtable participants that the bipartisan commission to investigate the causes of the deadly riot was controversial among Republicans for one reason. 'We have something new in American history,' Will said. 'We have a political party defined by the terror it feels for its own voters. That's the Republican Party right now.'... Every elected official is ... afraid that a vote for this would be seen as an insult to the 45th president.... I would like to see January 6th burned into the American mind as firmly as 9/11 because it was that scale of a shock to the system.'...'"

Belarus. Anton Troianovski & Ivan Nechepurenko of the New York Times: "The strongman president of Belarus sent a fighter jet to intercept a European airliner traveling through the country's airspace on Sunday and ordered the plane to land in the capital, Minsk, where [Roman Protasevicha,] a prominent opposition journalist aboard was then seized, provoking international outrage. The stunning gambit by Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, a brutal and erratic leader who has clung to power despite huge protests against his government last year, was condemned by European officials, who compared it to hijacking. But it underscored that with the support of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, Mr. Lukashenko is prepared to go to extraordinary lengths to repress dissent." The AP's story is here.

John Harwood of CNN: In 2012, Tom Mann & Norm Ornstein wrote a Washington Post op-ed which concluded "that the GOP had become 'ideologically extreme, scornful of compromise, unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science, dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.... "Let's just say it: The Republicans are the problem.'... [The essay] did not gain wide acceptance then. Many journalists joined leading Republicans in dismissing them.... [But] piece demonstrates more than the foresight of its political scientist authors.... It shows the disease within the Republican Party had spread long before Trump metastasized it." MB: Of course the Constant Weader linked the op-ed here. I don't think it surprised any Reality Chex readers. The only thing about it that surprised me is that Mann & Ornstein had the guts to write it, especially in the heyday of both-sider "journalism."

Goodbye to All That. After decades of being at the center of Washington, D.C., society, Sally Quinn writes in the Washington Post's magazine: "I don't think Washingtons social scene after Trump and covid will ever be the same. We almost lost our democracy, and many even lost their lives. If nothing else, what we've been through surely focused the mind on what is important."

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Eileen Sullivan of the New York Times: "The Biden administration on Saturday extended special protections to Haitians living temporarily in the United States after being displaced by a devastating 2010 earthquake, reversing efforts by the previous administration to force them to leave the country. The decision, announced by the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Alejandro N. Mayorkas, makes good on President Biden's campaign promise to restore a program that shields thousands of Haitian migrants from the threat of deportation under the restrictive policies put in place under ... Donald J. Trump. Mr. Mayorkas said the new 18-month designation, known as temporary protected status, would apply to Haitians already living in the United States as of Friday." The BuzzFeed News story is here.

Amy Wang of the Washington Post: "Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) is being widely lambasted for comparing the continuing coronavirus restrictions in the U.S. Capitol to what Jewish people suffered during the Holocaust.... Some of the most pointed pushback came from the minority of voices in Greene's own party. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) ... decried Greene's comparison as 'evil lunacy.'... The American Jewish Congress called on Greene to immediately retract her comments and apologize. 'You can never compare health-related restrictions with yellow stars, gas chambers & other Nazi atrocities,' the group stated. 'Such comparisons demean the Holocaust & contaminate American political speech.'... [Speaker Nancy] Pelosi has defended her decision to keep a mask mandate on the House floor by citing the relatively large number of Republican lawmakers who either have refused to be vaccinated against the coronavirus or who do not want to disclose that they had been vaccinated. A CNN survey last week found that 100 percent of House Democrats have received their vaccines, but only 95 out of 212 House Republicans said they had." MB: That is, everyone has to wear masks in the House -- because of Republicans, not Pelosi.

~~~ Sarah Rumpf of Mediaite: "Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) doubled down on her controversial comments comparing Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to the Nazis because of her mask rules for the House, telling a local Arizona reporter that she had said nothing wrong, and 'any rational Jewish person['] should also oppose 'what's happening with overbearing mask mandates.'"

Bad News All Around for Trumpists:

Joshua Zitser of Yahoo! News: "US authorities have confiscated roughly $90,000 from a man who sold footage of a protester being fatally shot during the January 6 storming of the Capitol, according to court filings seen by Reuters. John Earle Sullivan, a 26-year-old from Utah, recorded videos capturing the chaos of the Capitol riot, Reuters said. He claims to have been there as a 'documentarian' but now faces a total of eight criminal counts relating to his involvement in the insurrection, Insider previously reported. One of the videos he recorded, which included the shooting of Ashli Babbitt by a police officer, was sold to several unnamed news outlets for a total of $90,000, according to a seizure warrant seen by the news agency. Sullivan licensed parts of the video footage to the Washington Post and NBC, The New Yorker reported in February."

The following story should shatter some Trump-loving QAnon enthusiasts: ~~~

~~~ Jason Wilson of the Guardian: "Police intelligence documents show that Washington's Trump Hotel raised its rates 'as a security tactic', in the hope of deterring Trump-supporting QAnon supporters from staying there in early March, on a day which some believed would see Trump restored to office. The information, which police gleaned from a Business Insider version of a story published in Forbes on 6 February, was confirmed in an 8 February intelligence briefing stolen by ransomware hackers from Washington's Metropolitan police department (MPD). The hackers from the Babuk group subsequently published those documents online, and transparency group Distributed Denial of Secrets redistributed them to news outlets.... As Forbes reported in February, Trump International hotel in Washington raised its rates to 180% of the normal seasonal charge for 3 and 4 March this year. That was a date upon which some adherents to the QAnon conspiracy movement believed would see Trump once again sworn in as president...." MB: Seems Trump doesn't love you back, kids.

Oh Lordy, let this be the last time we even think of accessing Santorum.com. ~~~

~~~ Jennifer Bendery of the Huffington Post: "CNN has terminated its contract with senior political commentator Rick Santorum after racist, inaccurate remarks he made about Native Americans.... Santorum, a former Republican senator and two-time failed GOP presidential candidate, sparked outrage last month after claiming there was 'nothing' in America before white colonizers arrived and that Native people haven't contributed much to American culture, anyway." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) The Washington Post story is here.

Bob Brigham of the Raw Story: "Senior Donald Trump advisor Jason Miller has been ordered to pay Gizmodo Media Group $41,868.23 following a failed defamation lawsuit. Miller had sued Gizmodo over a 2018 story by Splinter News, which is owned by the company, over a 2018 story titled, 'Court Docs Allege Ex-Trump Staffer Drugged Woman He Got Pregnant With 'Abortion Pill.'... Splinter quoted directly from the legal filing." MB: Don't worry, Jason, your billionaire boss will gladly pay your legal fees. Ha ha.

Climate Change Is a Hoax. Claire Fahy of the New York Times: "An iceberg nearly half the size of Puerto Rico that broke off the edge of Antarctica last week is now the world's largest, researchers said. The iceberg, known as A76, following a naming convention established by the National Ice Center, naturally split from Antarctica's Ronne Ice Shelf into the Weddell Sea through a process known as calving, the center said. It measures about 1,668 square miles (4,320 square kilometers), making it larger than A23a, an iceberg that formed in 1986 and had a total area of more than 1,500 square miles (4,000 square kilometers) in January."

Damien Cave, et al., of the New York Times: "All over the world, countries are confronting population stagnation and a fertility bust, a dizzying reversal unmatched in recorded history.... The demographic forces -- pushing toward more deaths than births -- seem to be expanding and accelerating. Though some countries continue to see their populations grow, especially in Africa, fertility rates are falling nearly everywhere else.... A planet with fewer people could ease pressure on resources, slow the destructive impact of climate change and reduce household burdens for women. But the census announcements this month from China and the United States, which showed the slowest rates of population growth in decades for both countries, also point to hard-to-fathom adjustments."

Steven Johnson of the New York Times: "... during the century since the end of the Great Influenza outbreak, the average human life span has doubled. There are few measures of human progress more astonishing than this.... When the history textbooks do touch on the subject of improving health, they often nod to three critical breakthroughs, all of them presented as triumphs of the scientific method: vaccines, germ theory and antibiotics. But the real story is far more complicated. Those breakthroughs might have been initiated by scientists, but it took the work of activists and public intellectuals and legal reformers to bring their benefits to everyday people."

The Pandemic, Ctd.

Lenny Bernstein & Joel Achenbach of the Washington Post: "For the first time in 11 months, the daily average of new coronavirus infections in the United States has fallen below 30,000 amid continuing signs that most communities across the nation are emerging from the worst of the pandemic.... The pandemic map remains speckled with hot spots, including parts of the Deep South, the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Northwest. At the local level, progress against the contagion has not been uniform as some communities struggle with inequities in vaccine distribution and in the health impacts of the virus."

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Saturday are here: "Vaccinations in many American prisons, jails and detention centers are lagging far behind the United States as a whole, prompting public health officials to worry that these settings will remain fertile ground for frequent, fast-spreading coronavirus outbreaks for a long time to come. Nationally, more than 60 percent of people ages 18 or older have received at least one dose of vaccine so far. But only about 40 percent of federal prison inmates, and half of those in the largest state prison systems, have done so. And in immigration detention centers, the figure is just 20 percent.... Many inmates say they mistrust both the vaccine and the prison authorities who try to persuade them to get inoculated. Beyond that, some prison vaccination efforts have been hampered by mistakes." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Beyond the Beltway

New York Times Editors: "No reasonable officer could make the case that [George] Floyd's killing was justified. Yet thanks to a half-century-old judge-made doctrine, they don't have to. The doctrine, known as qualified immunity, has developed over the years into an impenetrable barrier to relief for many victims of police brutality -- or, as in the case of Mr. Floyd, for victims' families.... In a series of rulings starting in the late 1960s, the Supreme Court decided that an officer is immune from liability unless it can be shown that he or she broke 'clearly established' law in the process. The burden is on the plaintiff to make this showing, and the bar is absurdly high.... In practice, qualified immunity has become what Justice Sonia Sotomayor has called an 'absolute shield' that 'tells officers that they can shoot first and think later, and it tells the public that palpably unreasonable conduct will go unpunished.'... Ending qualified immunity has become ... a bipartisan effort.... The Supreme Court started this mess, and it could just as easily end it."

Louisiana. Lauren Aratani of the Guardian: "Two years after Ronald Greene, a 49-year-old Black man, died after a confrontation with white police officers in May 2019, the Louisiana police department released footage of the incident.... Footage released by the police on Friday was similar to the video released by the Associated Press this past week, which showed inconsistencies with the police's claim that Greene had died from a car crash.... Two investigations, an internal inquiry from Louisiana police and a federal civil rights investigation, began at the end of last summer -- over a year after Greene's death. Greene's family has also filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the officers involved. Citing these investigations, police refused to release footage until Friday. Col Lamar Davis, the state police superintendent..., said he intends to fire one of the state troopers involved, according to the Advocate. A second trooper died in a car crash last year, shortly after he was informed of his imminent termination. A third officer received a 50-hour suspension."

Minnesota. Paulina Villegas of the Washington Post: "A federal court judge on Friday sentenced a former St. Paul, Minn., police officer to six years in prison after a jury found him guilty of a civil rights violation for beating an unarmed Black man who was mistaken for a suspect nearly five years ago. A federal jury in 2019 convicted former St. Paul officer Brett Palkowitsch of using excessive force against an unarmed civilian after he brutally kicked and severely injured Frank Amal Baker and let a police dog maul him.

News Ledes

New York Times:"Twenty-one people, including two of China's top marathon athletes, died after freezing rain and high winds struck a 62-mile mountain race in northwestern China, local officials said on Sunday. Liang Jing, 31, an ultramarathon champion, and Huang Guanjun, the winner of the men's marathon for hearing-impaired runners at China's 2019 National Paralympic Games, were among those found dead, according to state news media. The deaths prompted outrage in China, with online commentators questioning the preparedness of the local government that organized the race...."

Washington Post: "Fifteen people have died in a volcano eruption in Congo late Saturday that turned the sky above a fearsome red and sent thousands fleeing from a city that was devastated by lava flows in 1977 and 2002. Government spokesman Patrick Muyaya said on Sunday night that two people had burned to death in the eruption of Mount Nyiragongo, nine died in a traffic accident while attempting to flee and four prisoners who had tried to escape their cells were also killed. He said property damage was reported in 17 villages surrounding the volcano, including Goma's suburbs."

The Commentariat -- May 22, 2021

Afternoon Update:

Oh Lordy, let this be the last time we even think of accessing Santorum.com. ~~~

~~~ Jennifer Bendery of the Huffington Post: "CNN has terminated its contract with senior political commentator Rick Santorum after racist, inaccurate remarks he made about Native Americans.... Santorum, a former Republican senator and two-time failed GOP presidential candidate, sparked outrage last month after claiming there was 'nothing' in America before white colonizers arrived and that Native people haven't contributed much to American culture, anyway."

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Saturday are here: "Vaccinations in many American prisons, jails and detention centers are lagging far behind the United States as a whole, prompting public health officials to worry that these settings will remain fertile ground for frequent, fast-spreading coronavirus outbreaks for a long time to come. Nationally, more than 60 percent of people ages 18 or older have received at least one dose of vaccine so far. But only about 40 percent of federal prison inmates, and half of those in the largest state prison systems, have done so. And in immigration detention centers, the figure is just 20 percent.... Many inmates say they mistrust both the vaccine and the prison authorities who try to persuade them to get inoculated. Beyond that, some prison vaccination efforts have been hampered by mistakes."

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Ben Leonard of Politico: "President Joe Biden on Friday delivered a thinly veiled swipe at ... Donald Trump for giving Kim Jong Un 'all that he's looking for' in the previous administration's dealings with North Korea. Speaking at a White House press conference alongside South Korean President Moon Jae-in, Biden said any meeting with the reclusive North Korean leader would come with preconditions, including setting parameters for further discussions on North Korea's nuclear arsenal and deescalation. 'What I would not do is ... do what had been done in the recent past,' Biden said. 'I would not give him all that he's looking for, international recognition as legitimate and ... give them what allowed him to move in a direction of appearing to be more ... serious about what he wasn't at all serious about.'... Biden also announced Friday that he was appointing Sung Kim to be a special envoy to North Korea.... In the press conference, Biden also pledged some 550,000 South Korean soldiers who are in 'close contact' with American military members would get Covid-19 vaccinations."

Dan Lamothe of the Washington Post: "A retired Army officer became one of the most decorated soldiers in U.S. military history on Friday, receiving the Medal of Honor from President Biden at the White House more than 70 years after leading soldiers through a fierce attack during the Korean War. Col. Ralph Puckett Jr., 94, stood in a dress uniform as Biden draped the medal around his neck. He had entered the ceremony in a wheelchair, and a walker was nearby, but set both aside to receive the nation's highest award for valor in combat. Biden, awarding his first Medal of Honor as president, recounted how Puckett braved enemy fire repeatedly as his soldiers took control of Hill 205, frozen high ground about 60 miles from the Chinese border.... South Korean President Moon Jae-in was among the dignitaries attending, becoming what is believed to be the first head of state to attend a Medal of Honor ceremony." White House video of the ceremony is here.

He Did It His Way. David Ignatius of the Washington Post: "One outcome of the [Israeli] war is that the United States is back as a mediator in the 'peace process' business. [President] Biden put it simply in a statement on Thursday announcing the cease-fire: 'I believe the Palestinians and Israelis equally deserve to live safely and securely and to enjoy equal measures of freedom, prosperity and democracy.' He characterized his approach as 'quiet and relentless diplomacy.'... [Biden] seemed this week to have learned something from his sometimes overeager predecessors, operating mostly in private and resisting demands for bluster."

Biden Posts "Help Wanted" Signs. Lisa Rein of the Washington Post: "... a $1.5 trillion preliminary budget the White House released in April ... directs billions of dollars into hiring to help curb climate change, restore enforcement of environmental and workplace laws, and expand safety net programs in housing, education, public health and veterans' health. President Biden vowed during his campaign to restore faith in a federal bureaucracy his predecessor villainized as an unaccountable 'deep state' -- and with debate stirring in Congress on $6 trillion in spending proposed by the White House, that shift now involves persuading Americans to embrace a bigger government.... Even in just a single term, Trump succeeded in his goal of cleaving and disrupting the federal government. Some programs that are crucial to Biden's agenda are so short-staffed that his administration can't yet fully implement his policies, among them enforcement of fair-housing and workplace safety laws. A number of decisions by the Trump administration, including the relocation of key economic research and land management offices, are proving hard to reverse."

Jim Acosta of CNN: "A top aide to Republican Rep. Carlos Gimenez of Florida says he spoke with both the Capitol Police and the FBI on the morning of January 6 after overhearing a man in tactical gear talk about storming the FBI building just hours before the deadly insurrection. Alex Ferro, chief of staff to the Florida GOP congressman, says he heard the comments as he and Gimenez were standing inside the lobby of the Hyatt Regency near Capitol Hill."

David Fahrenthold & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump charged the Secret Service more than $40,000 this spring for rooms that Trump's own protective detail used while guarding him at his Mar-a-Lago Club, according to federal spending records.... While he was president, Trump's properties charged the U.S. government more than $2.5 million, often so that Secret Service agents could use rooms near him.... Trump's decision to charge the Secret Service rent appears unusual -- both for a sitting president and now for a former one.... The closest parallel to Trump was ... Joe Biden. While he was protected as vice president, Biden charged the Secret Service $2,200 per month to use a cottage on his property in Delaware. In total, Biden received $171,600 between 2011 and 2017. Biden has not charged the Secret Service rent since becoming president in January, a White House spokesman said. Historians said they were surprised Trump was still charging the Secret Service, considering that ex-presidents are entitled to an array of other taxpayer-funded benefits, including paid staff and a $219,000-per-year pension." (Also linked yesterday.)

Barbara McQuade in a USA Today op-ed: "New York Attorney General Letitia James's investigation into the Trump Organization ... is no longer 'purely civil' but is also being conducted in 'a criminal capacity,' and she is now working along with Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr.... Tuesday's news ... is a game changer for Trump and his business.... First, launching a criminal investigation indicates that James has found factual predication of criminal intent.... Second, announcing that the investigation is criminal in nature suggests that James's office believes they have evidence sufficient to meet that higher standard [of proof required in criminal cases]. And finally..., a criminal case ... can result not only in fines and restitution for the corporate entity, but also prison sentences for individuals involved in wrongdoing.... These business frauds are the ones that should concern Trump the most. That's because they are what prosecutors refer to as 'paper' cases, meaning they are built not on eyewitness testimony but on documents."

Steve Beynon of Military.com: Ted Cruz's complaint about the "woke" U.S. military -- as compared to masculine Russian army -- "were met with scorn from many in the military and veteran community. Some bashed him for seeming to attack a female soldier even as the Defense Department faces a pervasive sexual assault crisis and tries to make the military more welcoming to women.... Cruz and other Republicans have made recent efforts to turn military issues into a cultural fight. Last month, he wrote a letter to the Pentagon slamming the military for 'being mobilized against the speech of American citizens or in the service of left wing political causes.'"

Margie Takes the GOP's Whiney "Culture" to a New Low. Ryan Nobles of CNN: "Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, during an interview on a conservative podcast this week, compared House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's decision to continue to require members of the House to wear masks on the chamber floor to steps the Nazis took to control the Jewish population during the Holocaust. Greene, in a conversation with the Christian Broadcasting Network's David Brody..., attacked Pelosi and accused her of being a hypocrite for asking GOP members to prove they have all been vaccinated before allowing members to be in the House chamber without a mask. 'You know, we can look back at a time in history where people were told to wear a gold star, and they were definitely treated like second class citizens, so much so that they were put in trains and taken to gas chambers in Nazi Germany,' Greene said. 'And this is exactly the type of abuse that Nancy Pelosi is talking about.' Jewish groups were quick to condemn Greene's remarks."

Paula Reid, et al., of CNN: "Federal authorities investigating alleged sex trafficking by GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz have secured the cooperation of the congressman's ex-girlfriend, according to people familiar with the matter. The woman, a former Capitol Hill staffer, is seen as a critical witness, as she has been linked to Gaetz as far back as the summer of 2017, a period of time that has emerged as a key window of scrutiny for investigators. She can also help investigators understand the relevance of hundreds of transactions they have obtained records of, including those involving alleged payments for sex, the sources said."

Knocking Up a 14-Year-Old Is Totally "Romeo & Juliet." Michael Cummo of the Wyoming Tribune Eagle: "U.S. House candidate Anthony Bouchard [R] had a relationship with and impregnated a 14-year-old girl when he was 18, he told the Star-Tribune late Thursday, hours after he disclosed the relationship in a Facebook Live video to his supporters. Bouchard, who did not specify the girl's age in the video, said he went public with the information to get ahead of the story after learning that people were investigating it in opposition to his candidacy. A Wyoming state senator since 2017, Bouchard has risen in prominence since announcing he would challenge Rep. Liz Cheney following her vote to impeach ... Donald Trump. 'So, bottom line, it's a story when I was young, two teenagers, girl gets pregnant,' he said in the Facebook Live video. 'You've heard those stories before. She was a little younger than me, so it's like the Romeo and Juliet story.'" MB: The star-crossed lovers married in Florida and divorced three years later. The young woman committed suicide at age 20. No Romeo in sight. Have at it, Will Shakespeare. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ John Amato of Crooks & Liars: "This repugnant man [Bouchard] has the audacity to claim that his history is being used in dirty politics and the media swamp to undermine his candidacy.... Statutory rape is apparently now part of the GOP platform."

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. David Folkenflik of NPR: "The New York-based hedge fund Alden Global Capital -- known for slashing its newspapers' budgets to extract escalated profits -- won shareholder approval Friday for its $633 million bid to acquire the Tribune Publishing newspaper chain. The purchase represents the culmination of Alden's years-long drive to take over the company and its storied titles -- including the Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun, New York Daily News and major metro papers from Hartford, Conn., to Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Alden's reputation as a 'vulture' fund had set off a frantic effort by union members in Tribune Publishing newsrooms." ~~~

~~~ If You're So Rich, Why Don't You Own a Newspaper? Margaret Sullivan of the Washington Post: "It didn't have to turn out this way. Local investors -- especially in a prosperous town like Chicago -- could have stepped forward to block a hedge fund from gaining control of several of the nation's top daily newspapers.... this outcome[, said Ann Marie Lipinski, curator of Harvard's Nieman Foundation and a former top editor of the Chicago Tribune] 'represents a failure of civic leadership' in many communities, but particularly Chicago.... 'We're slowly replacing a functional press with PR spam, hedge fund dudebros, trolling substack opinion columnists, foreign and domestic disinformation, brand-slathered teen influencers, and hugely consolidated dumpster fires like Sinclair Broadcasting,' tweeted the tech journalist Karl Bode...." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: What Sullivan doesn't say is that local moguls prefer sports vanity projects. They don't invest in journalists; they prefer to bask in their glory in plush, hermetically-sealed box seats at football & baseball games. (These "prestige" boxes, BTW, are usually partially paid for with local tax dollars.) Another reason I despise professional sports.

The Pandemic, Ctd.

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Friday are here: "Deaths from Covid-19 and Covid-related causes are likely to be two to three times the number that countries have recorded in their official data, the World Health Organization said on Friday. Some six to eight million people may have now died from Covid-19 or its effects since the start of the pandemic, compared with 3.4 million deaths recorded in countries' official reporting, Dr. Samira Asma, assistant director of the W.H.O.'s data division, told reporters." (Also linked yesterday.)

Another Reason to Get Vaccinated: It's Way Cheaper to Stay Healthy. Sarah Kliff of the New York Times: "Americans with other serious illnesses regularly face exorbitant and confusing bills after treatment, but things were supposed to be different for coronavirus patients. Many large health plans wrote special rules, waiving co-payments and deductibles for coronavirus hospitalizations. When doctors and hospitals accepted bailout funds, Congress barred them from 'balance-billing' patients -- the practice of seeking additional payment beyond what the insurer has paid. Interviews with more than a dozen patients suggest those efforts have fallen short. Some with private insurance are bearing the costs of their coronavirus treatments, and the bills can stretch into the tens of thousands of dollars."

Capitalism Is Awesome, Ctd. Reed Abelson of the New York Times: "Billions of dollars in Covid aid cushioned financial losses caused by the pandemic at some of the nation's largest hospital chains. But those bailouts also helped sustain the big chains' spending sprees as they expanded even more by scooping up weakened competitors and doctors' practices. More consolidation by several major hospital systems enhanced their market prowess in many regions of the United States, even as rural hospitals and underserved communities were overwhelmed with Covid patients and struggled to stay afloat. The buying spree is likely to prompt further debate and scrutiny of the Provider Relief Fund, a package of $178 billion in congressional aid that drew sharp criticism early on for allocating so much to the wealthiest hospital systems, and that had no limits on mergers and acquisitions. The Biden administration is now weighing which hospitals and health providers will get the remaining $25 billion."

Beyond the Beltway

Georgia. Amy Gardner of the Washington Post: "A Georgia state judge on Friday ordered Fulton County to allow a group of local voters to inspect all 147,000 mail-in ballots cast in the 2020 election in response to a lawsuit alleging that officials accepted thousands of counterfeit ballots.... Superior Court Judge Brian Amero ruled on Friday that the nine plaintiffs and their experts could examine copies of the ballots but never touch the originals, which will remain in the possession of Fulton election officials.... The decision marks the latest instance of a local government being forced to undergo a third-party inspection of its election practices amid baseless accusations promoted by ... Donald Trump that fraud flipped the 2020 contest for President Biden."

New York. Michael Balsamo of the AP: "The two Bureau of Prisons workers tasked with guarding Jeffrey Epstein the night he killed himself in a New York jail have admitted they falsified records, but they will skirt any time behind bars under a deal with federal prosecutors, authorities said Friday.... [They] would instead be subjected to supervised release, would be required to complete 100 hours of community service and would be required to fully cooperate with an ongoing probe by the Justice Department's inspector general, it says."

Ore-Ida Potatoheads, Ctd. I'd Rather Be in Idaho. Kirk Johnson of the New York Times: "A majority of residents in five eastern [Oregon] counties said in nonbinding votes that they would like to leave Oregon and join with their more like-minded conservative neighbors further east in Idaho.... Voters in two other counties, Union and Jefferson, voted last fall to address the question of a border change, a process that will begin with public meetings in the counties, with one set for June.... The odds against success are long. Oregon's Legislature, which is dominated by Democrats, who also control every statewide office, would have to go along with it, as would Idaho's Republican-dominated Legislature -- not to mention the U.S. Congress." ~~~

~~~ Because Bundy for Governor! Audrey Dutton of the Idaho Capital Sun: "He's banned from the Idaho Capitol building, but that didn't stop Ammon Bundy from taking the first step toward running for Idaho governor. Bundy, who lives in Emmett, filed paperwork Friday to appoint a treasurer to a campaign for governor. The anti-government activist appeared to have appointed himself as treasurer, but according to a Secretary of State Office tweet, a treasurer must be a registered Idaho voter. According to the office, Bundy will either need to become a registered voter and refile the paperwork or name a new treasurer and refile.... During the past year, police arrested Bundy multiple times in Boise, with most of those arrests occurring at the Idaho Capitol. He was handcuffed and wheeled out of the Capitol on an office chair after refusing to leave in August. He was banned from the building for a year, but returned, which led to arrests for trespassing. Bundy returned again last month and was arrested twice in one day."

Way Beyond

Israel. Shira Rubin, et al., of the Washington Post: "As a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas militants held into Friday evening, attention shifted from the 11-day conflict to the dire humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, potential political fallout for Israel's embattled prime minister and renewed tensions in Jerusalem.... As bulldozers pushed sand into shell and missile craters, some Gazans returned to their devastated neighborhoods for the first time since the start of the confrontation. They assessed the destruction while celebrating what many characterized as a victory of endurance over a more powerful foe.... Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said 'riots' broke out Friday afternoon, following prayers at al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem's Old City, involving hundreds of Palestinians who 'threw rocks and petrol bombs at police officers.' He said they were then dispersed by Israeli police and that 16 of the demonstrators were arrested."

U.K. Doha Madani of NBC News: "Princes William and Harry pressed for higher standards in the news media following a BBC investigation that found the journalist Martin Bashir used "'deceitful behavior' to secure a landmark interview with Diana, Princess of Wales. William, Duke of Cambridge, said, '... what saddens me most, is that if the BBC had properly investigated the complaints and concerns first raised in 1995, my mother would have known that she had been deceived.'... Harry, Duke of Sussex, went a step further and explicitly blamed the media for his mother's death. Many have attributed the paparazzi following her for contributing to the car crash that killed her in Paris." Related stories linked yesterday. (Also linked yesterday.)

Way, Way Beyond

Harry Reid writes a New York Times op-ed about UFOs. He says he doesn't know much, but unless you're one of the select few with the proper security clearance, Harry knows more than you do.