Month: November 2021

I really hate extolling her for anything. She’s a far right-winger who serves corporate masters. However, she isn’t crazy and at this point I’ll take it. This week she spoke at a  Loeb School First Amendment Event In New Hampshire and said a bunch of stuff I disagree with about policy and American history etc. What else is new?

But she also said this and it’s important.

At this moment, when it matters most, we are also confronting a domestic threat that we’ve never faced before: a former president who’s attempting to unravel the foundations of our Constitutional Republic, aided by political leaders who have made themselves willing hostages to this dangerous and irrational man.
 
Just last night, former President Trump was invited by House Republican leaders to be the keynote speaker at our annual large fundraising dinner. At the dinner, he reportedly said, once again, that the “insurrection was on November 3rd,” and that the events of January 6th — when a violent mob invaded the Capitol in an effort to overturn the will of the American people and stop the constitutional process of the counting of electoral votes — that those events were a “protest,” that they were justified. 
 
Political leaders who sit silent in the face of these false and dangerous claims are aiding a former president who is at war with the rule of law and the Constitution. 
 
When our constitutional order is threatened, as it is now, rising above partisanship is not simply an aspiration. It is an obligation — an obligation of every one of us. 
 
You know, I am a conservative Republican. I disagree strongly with nearly everything President Biden has done since he has been in office. His policies are bad for this country. I believe deeply that conservative principles: limited government, low taxes, a strong national defense, the family — the family as the essential building block of our nation and our society, those are the right ideals for this country. 
 
I love my party. I love its history. I love its principles, but I love my country more. I know this nation needs a Republican Party that is based on truth, one that puts forward our ideals and our policies based on substance. One that is willing to reject the former president’s lies. One that is willing to tell the truth: that millions of Americans have been tragically misled by former President Trump, who continues to this day to use language that he knows provoked violence on January 6th. We need a Republican Party that is led by people who remember that the peaceful transfer of power is sacred and it undergirds the very foundations of our Republic. We need Republican leaders who remember that fidelity to the Constitution, fidelity to the rule of law, those are the most conservative of conservative principles. 
 
In the months since January 6th, I have sometimes heard people say something like, “Well, what happened was bad, but it wasn’t that big a deal because our institutions held.” To those people, I say, our institutions do not defend themselves. We the people defend them. 
 
Our institutions held on January 6th because there were brave men and women, elected officials at every level of our government who did their duty, who stood up for what was right, who resisted pressure to do otherwise. And our institutions held because of the bravery of the men and women in law enforcement and in our military, our Capitol Police, some of whom are here with us today, our metropolitan police, the ATF — men and women in law enforcement who defended the most sacred space in our Republic, our Capitol building. 
 
Our institutions held because there were 140 law enforcement officers who fought for hours and held the tunnel on the West front of the Capitol, preventing a violent mob of even more, thousands more, from entering our building. Because of these brave men and women, Congress was safe and we carried out our constitutional duty to count the electoral votes.
 
That is why our institutions held. Because men and women of courage and honor recognized one of the most fundamental principles in a Republic — and that is the principle that no citizen in a Republic is a bystander. No one is. Every one of us is called to defend this great experiment of government of, by and for the people. 

I’m afraid Liz is out there pretty much alone, making that case. Not even the Democrats have been as critical of the GOP as she has been.This is, in my opinion, the main reason Glenn Youngkin got over as well as he did. The Dems have just never successfully tied the Republican Party to Trump and as a result there exists some idea out in the electorate that they are not responsible for him. It’s daft. And that Youngkin campaign proves it.

As for Liz, apparently, she didn’t see the writing on the wall when her party went down the rabbit hole 20-30-40 years ago deciding that they would win by any means necessary. Her father ascended to the Vice Presidency by a partisan Supreme Court decision in an election case that was manipulated by the GOP and the president’s governor brother to give him a 535 vote victory out of a hundred million cast. So, really, Donald Trump had a precedent, didn’t he? And she was right in the middle of it.

I would say that maybe it’s guilt pushing her to do what she’s doing but I doubt it. I think she has her cynical reasons but I suspect it is truly just personal antipathy for Trump and his crude Big Lie. I do wonder if she’d have gone so obstinately against the party line if he’d just had a little more finesse. But what’s the difference? She represents a tiny little faction in the party. The rest of them are all in.

More subpoenas went out this week from the January 6th Committee, including some members of the Trump team who are very close to the president. (I wrote about one of them yesterday — the very scary Trumpenjugen Johnny McEntee.) The list is now quite long and includes well-known names like Kellyanne Conway and Stephen Miller as well as lesser known factotums and henchmen.

The NY Times ran down the details on what the Committee is looking at so far:

In recent weeks, the committee has hired new investigators, pored over thousands of documents and heard privately from a stream of voluntary witnesses, from rally planners and former Trump officials to the rioters themselves.

More than 150 witnesses have been interviewed, some of whom surprised investigators by proactively contacting the committee to testify, according to two people familiar with the investigation who described the confidential inquiry on the condition of anonymity.

The panel has learned details about how “Stop the Steal” rally organizers used deception to obtain permits from the Capitol Police to hold rallies near the Capitol; how Mr. Trump and White House officials coordinated with organizers of the rally whose attendees would later storm the Capitol; and how deeply Mr. Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, was involved in pushing false claims of widespread election fraud.

Working out of a nondescript office building at the bottom of Capitol Hill, the committee’s investigators have divided themselves into color-coded teams to pursue several avenues of inquiry. They are looking into:

The money trail. Investigators are scrutinizing the groups that funded the protests that preceded the violence, which involved rioters from at least 44 states, and promoted and spread lies online that helped radicalize the crowd.

Planning meetings. The panel is pressing for answers about gatherings at the Willard and other Washington hotels where Mr. Trump’s allies who were involved in the effort to overturn the election, including Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Eastman, met in the hours before the riot.

Foreknowledge of violence. The most difficult piece of the investigation involves unearthing evidence that Mr. Trump or anyone in his inner circle had foreknowledge that violence was a possibility on Jan. 6, and whether they took any steps to either encourage or discourage the storming of the Capitol. Mr. Bannon, whom the House voted to hold in criminal contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the committee, predicted on his podcast a day before the riot that “all hell is going to break loose tomorrow.”

The committee wants to question Mr. Bannon about his presence at a meeting at the Willard on Jan. 5, when plans were discussed to try to block Congress’s formalization of the election the next day.

“Mr. Bannon was in the war room at the Willard on Jan. 6,” Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming and the vice chairwoman of the committee, said during a recent hearing.

Mr. Stone, who was photographed with Mr. Flynn on Jan. 5, has claimed that he had departed his room at the Willard to leave town as rioters stormed the Capitol, after he decided against a plan to “lead a march” from the White House Ellipse to the Capitol, according to video posted to social media.

But the Willard was only one hub of Trump activity before the Jan. 6 riot, when members of the former president’s inner circle also congregated at the nearby Trump International and other hotels to plan their bid to invalidate the election results.

Mr. Flynn was also present at the Trump International Hotel on Jan. 5 for a meeting that included about 15 people, where the discussion centered on “how to put pressure on more members of Congress to object to the Electoral College results,” according to one attendee, Charles Herbster, a Republican candidate for governor of Nebraska.

Hmmm.

PA GOP Senate candidate Everett Stern announces he was approached earlier this year by representatives of Michael Flynn’s ‘Patriot Caucus’ to “gather intelligence” on Senators, Judges and Congressman in order to extort them to support audits. He says he gave the evidence to Feds. pic.twitter.com/F7QBT9Gr15

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) October 31, 2021

Remember this?

Trump publicly dangling blackmail material, which he refers to as “compromising situations,” at some unnamed Democratic Senator. pic.twitter.com/meZb28zaJN

— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) October 1, 2018

They wouldn’t really blackmail public officials would they?

Of course they would.

These are the nice parents that everyone in Washington insists the Democrats have offended with their “woke” ways and need to be wooed back:

It was when the police car pulled away from her house, some time after midnight on a Thursday in late October, that Beth Barts hit her breaking point.

The school board member in Loudoun County, Va., had been fielding abusive, profane and threatening emails, Facebook messages and phone calls for eight months. She was also facing a recall campaign from mostly conservative parents irate over her support for pandemic safety measures, as well as her membership in a pro-equity parent group on Facebook. And she had been censured by other members of the school board in part for her outspokenness, which they said veered into rudeness, on social media.

The harassment of Barts, a 50-year-old stay-at-home mother and former librarian who used to lead a Girl Scouts troop, is part of a wave of anger against elected and appointed school officials, including superintendents, that is cresting nationwide. Parents upset over things including mask mandates in schools, as well as officials’ efforts to introduce more diverse curriculums and bias trainings for teachers, have taken over school board meetings, shouting abuse, making threats and demanding resignations

In early October, Attorney General Merrick Garland directed federal authorities to collaborate with state and local law enforcement to combat “harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school administrators.” He was responding to a request from the National School Boards Association, which represents school board members across the country and which in late September sent a letter to President Biden asking for assistance handling what the association called “a form of domestic terrorism.”

Republican lawmakers — and many parents — took offense to Garland’s directive, complaining that the federal government and the National School Boards Association are demonizing well-meaning mothers and fathers who just want what’s best for their children.

Hey, these people making violent threats are just well-meaning mons and dads. Everyone must be very polite and conciliatory toward them.

The ongoing harassment of school board members runs the gamut: In Illinois, a man was arrested for striking a school official at a September board meeting. In Hilton, N.Y., three people were arrested at a school board meeting last month — one for allegedly refusing to put on a mask, two for allegedly refusing to leave after the school board president suspended the meeting because of attendees’ unruly behavior.

And in Pennsylvania, a Republican candidate for Northampton County executive said at an August rally that he would bring “20 strong men” to the next school board meeting so they could “replace [board members] with nine parents and we’re going to vote down the mask mandates . . . this is how you get stuff done.” Steve Lynch, who was in D.C. at the time of the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, denied he meant to threaten board members. He ultimately lost his election.

The hottest conflict over education has arguably come in Loudoun, a majority White, politically divided and wealthy suburb just outside D.C. Intense coverage from conservative media has converted Loudoun into the face of the nation’s culture wars. Board meetings in the district of roughly 81,000 students regularly stretch late into the night because more than 100 parents show up, some eager to scream insults at the board, some to pray for their salvation.

Despite the threats and anger, Barts said, she never felt unsafe in her own home. Not after a quarter-century of living in Leesburg, the quiet town she knows so well, the place where she has already raised one child and is midway through raising the second, a girl.

But it was thoughts of her youngest daughter that gripped Barts on a Thursday last month, as she sat on the couch trying to distract herself with an episode of “Ted Lasso.” The police were outside her house, she said, because the Loudoun County Public Schools safety and security team had asked the county sheriff’s office to send patrols to the homes of every school board member.

The embattled board was confronting yet another firestorm of controversy after revelations that the school district had transferred a teenager accused of sexual assault to a second high school within the system, where the teen allegedly committed a second assault. Some conservative parents and pundits were tying the sexual assault allegations to the district’s recent adoption of a policy that allowed transgender students to use bathrooms matching their gender identities — a policy Barts had supported.

Earlier that evening, Barts’s daughter had complained that the police officer’s flashing blue lights were making it impossible to sleep. Barts’s husband walked outside and asked the officer if he could turn off his lights. The policeman replied that he couldn’t: “That way,” Barts’s husband remembered him saying, “people are aware we’re here.”

Eventually, Barts’s husband and daughter fell asleep. But she stayed up, unable to relax. Her mind strayed to snatches of the messages she’d been receiving for months: “You f—ing disgusting piece of s—.” “YOU ARE A TRAITOR TO THE USA!” “A public hanging is in order . . . Should only take a few seconds.”

After the cop left that night, she had a panic attack thinking about her kid being in danger from these loons and she quit.

I’m sure there are real concerns about curriculum and mandates and all the rest. Parents got a close look at the school systems during the pandemic and didn’t like everything they saw. But let’s not kid ourselves. This is mostly political and it’s driven by the arrogant, violent right.

On a balmy evening in early October, about a dozen people gathered before a red-roofed house in a sleepy Sarasota County, Fla., neighborhood.

A girl in a red dress waved an American flag. A man paced back and forth with a “Don’t Tread On Me” flag hoisted over one shoulder, shouting, “No vaccines! No masks!” Other adults pulled out megaphones.

“We see you in there, Shirley,” called a man in a black baseball cap, according to a video shared on Twitter. “We know the next step is from masks to vaccines. This will not happen. This is the line we will die on.”

They were standing outside the home of Shirley Brown, the 69-year-old chair of the Sarasota County Schools board. Midway through cooking dinner when the protesters arrived, Brown within minutes phoned the police for help. By that point, she had already received a slew of emails labeling her a tyrant and a child abuser for her support of mask-wearing in schools. A parent group had shared her home address and phone number online.

“I mean,” said Brown, who plans to retire when her term expires next year, “when did asking kids to wear a mask become child abuse?”

In most places, the path to parental outrage has been the same. Mothers and fathers began showing up to board meetings in spring and summer of 2020, upset over school closures because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Beverly Anderson, a long-serving board member for Virginia Beach City Public Schools, said she first noticed an uptick in discontent when she began receiving 50 to 60 emails a day following her school system’s decision to close because of the pandemic in March 2020. Parents started showing up to complain at board meetings soon afterward, and the tone quickly turned far nastier than anything Anderson had seen in almost a decade serving on the school board.

“Covid changed things,” Anderson said, “because people didn’t understand why we had to close schools.”

Even after many schools reopened last fall, parents across the United States kept attending board meetings to share their concerns over safety measures, including social distancing, and to push for more days of in-person teaching. Some were upset that teachers were among the first in line for vaccines, given a portion of educators were continuing to teach remotely. And, taking the opposite view, some speakers came to demand more safety precautions.

By the fall of the 2021-2022 academic year, with the vast majority of school districts reopened for five days a week of almost-normal in-person learning, the arguments shifted to center on curricular and cultural issues. Some parents nationwide — usually White, conservative parents — have become alarmed over what they argue is the indoctrination of their children with critical race theory, a college-level academic framework that examines systemic racism in America.

If these parents were sincerely “well-meaning” they would condemn harassment and violent threats. They would not behave like animals at school board meetings. This is culture war, emphasis on the war. Just look at the threats. They are one size fits all wingnuttia. If it wasn’t this issue it would be something else.

Glenn Younkin, the great white hope for political journalists everywhere, knew exactly what he was exploiting. And Democrats are supposed to find a way to appease them? Yeah, that’ll work.

Start throwing books on the pyre:

WICHITA, Kansas — The Goddard school district has removed more than two dozen books from circulation in the district’s school libraries, citing national attention and challenges to the books elsewhere.

The list of books includes several well-known novels, including “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood, “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison, “The Hate U Give” by Angie Thomas and “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky.

It also includes “Fences,” a play by August Wilson that won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1987, and “They Called Themselves the K.K.K.,” a historical look at how the white supremacist group took root in America.

Julie Cannizzo, assistant superintendent for academic affairs in Goddard, sent an email to principals and librarians last week with the list of 29 books.

“At this time, the district is not in a position to know if the books contained on this list meet our educational goals or not,” Cannizzo wrote in the email. “Additionally, we need to gain a better understanding of the processes utilized to select books for our school libraries.

“For these reasons, please do not allow any of these books to be checked out while we are in the process of gathering more information. If a book on this list is currently checked out, please do (not) allow it to be checked out again once it’s returned.”

Cannizzo said in the email that the district is assembling a committee to “rate the content of the books on the list” and to review the selection process. She did not say how long the process is expected to take.

Cannizzo said Tuesday that one parent objected to language he found offensive in “The Hate U Give,” a novel about the aftermath of a police officer killing a Black teenager. The parent then submitted a list of books he questioned, and district officials agreed to halt checkouts and complete a review.

This is not just a one-off:

Shortly after the election result in Virginia, a pair of conservative school board members in the same state proposed not just banning certain books deemed to be sexually explicit, but burning them.

As the Fredericksburg Free-Lance Star reported Tuesday:Two board members, Courtland representative Rabih Abuismail and Livingston representative Kirk Twigg, said they would like to see the removed books burned.“I think we should throw those books in a fire,” Abuismail said, and Twigg said he wants to “see the books before we burn them so we can identify within our community that we are eradicating this bad stuff.”

Abuismail reportedly added that allowing one particular book to remain on the shelves even briefly meant the schools “would rather have our kids reading gay pornography than about Christ.”

It’s easy to caricature a particular movement with some of its most extreme promoters. And there is a demonstrated history of efforts to ban books in schools, including by liberals. Such efforts have often involved classics such as “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Of Mice and Men” for their depictions of race and use of racist language more commonly used at the time the books were written. More recently, conservatives have often challenged books teaching kids about LGBTQ issues.

But advocates say what’s happening now is more pronounced.

“What has taken us aback this year is the intensity with which school libraries are under attack,” said Nora Pelizzari, a spokeswoman at the National Coalition Against Censorship.

She added that the apparent coordination of the effort sets it apart: “Particularly when taken in concert with the legislative attempts to control school curricula, this feels like a more overarching attempt to purge schools of materials that people disagree with. It feels different than what we’ve seen in recent years.”

[…]

 Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) issued an executive order calling on state education officials to review the books available to students for “pornography and other obscene content.” Abbott indicated before the order that such content needed to be examined and removed if it was found. He reportedly did not specify what the “obscene content” standard for books should be.

Abbott added Wednesday that the Texas Education Agency should report any instances of pornography being made available to minors “for prosecution to the fullest extent of the law.”

The effort builds upon a review launched last month by state Rep. Michael Krause (R), who is running for state attorney general. Krause is targeting books that “contain material that might make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress because of their race or sex or convey that a student, by virtue of their race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.”

Krause doesn’t say what he intends to recommend about such books, but he accompanied his inquiry with a list of more than 800 of them, including two Pulitzer Prize winners: “The Confessions of Nat Turner” by William Styron and “Between the World and Me” by Ta-Nehisi Coates.

There has also been an effort by Republicans in Wisconsin not focused on books, but broadly on the use of certain terminology in teaching students. As the Hill’s Reid Wilson reported about the state GOP’s particular effort to ban critical race theory from schools:[State Rep. Chuck] Wichgers (R), who represents Muskego in the legislature, attached an addendum to his legislation that included a list of “terms and concepts” that would violate the bill if it became law.Among those words: “Woke,” “whiteness,” “White supremacy,” “structural bias,” “structural racism,” “systemic bias” and “systemic racism.” The bill would also bar “abolitionist teaching,” in a state that sent more than 91,000 soldiers to fight with the Union Army in the Civil War.The list of barred words or concepts includes “equity,” “inclusivity education,” “multiculturalism” and “patriarchy,” as well as “social justice” and “cultural awareness.”

Back in September, a school district in Pennsylvania reversed a year-long freeze on certain books almost exclusively by or about people of color. A similar thing happened in Katy, Tex., near Houston, where graphic novels about Black children struggling to fit in were removed and quickly reinstated last month. Many such fights have been concentrated in Texas.

There has also been a recent effort by a conservative group in Tennessee to ban books written for young readers about the civil rights struggle. Supporters cite the anti-critical race theory law the state passed earlier this year. And school officials in Virginia Beach recently announced they’d review books, including ones about LGBTQ issues and Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye,” after complaints from school board members.

Indeed, oftentimes the books involved are the same.

You will notice how the right has appropriated the snowflake language of the campus left to further their own cause now. They want to “contain material that might make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress because of their race or sex or convey that a student, by virtue of their race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.” The feelings they are worried about in this case are the feelings of white, male children. Apparently they are just too dim-witted or cruelly uncaring to see those very concerns about kids of color, gay kids and girls in the standard curriculum they insist must be restored.

Book burning, film burning, anything like that should be anathema to any civilized society. And we see examples of this on both sides of the political divide these days. But the US is clearly not a civilized society so I wouldn’t be surprised to see some big bonfires coming our way. That seems to be the mood of our nation at the moment.

Axios’ Jim Vandehei wrote that the the Republicans have landed on a new post-Trump template and it’s just terrific:

Republicans are rallying around a plan to break up with corporate America and oppose Big Business, Big Tech, Big Media, Big Education — and big government:

Quit corporate America: A new breed of Republicans — led by Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who last week called on the party to divorce Big Business — is championing the working class against the party’s traditional boardroom allies. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) introduced a plan to “Bust Up Anti-Competitive Big Businesses.”

Pound parental rights: Terry McAuliffe’s debate remark dissing parents allowed Virginia Republicans to mainstream an issue that was already burning up Fox News. The day after Glenn Youngkin’s victory, House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy said the party will soon unveil a “parent’s bill of rights.” Democrats are now playing defense on education — an issue they used to own.

Terrorize tech: If Republicans win back the House and/or Senate majorities, curbs on Big Tech — including new taxes — will be a Day 1 priority. Cries of censorship — real or manufactured — are one of the surest GOP applause lines, milking the party’s cultural gulf with Silicon Valley. J.D. Vance, the “Hillbilly Elegy” author running for Senate in Ohio, is pushing to dismantle the “Big Tech Oligarchy.”

Malign mandates: President Biden’s plan to require COVID vaccination or testing for employers of 100+ people beginning Jan. 4 has been a huge gift in the eyes of Republican governors. Florida’s Ron DeSantis was among the first of several GOP governors to sue Biden over the mandate: “[T]he federal government cannot unilaterally impose medical policy under the guise of workplace regulation.”

Fan fear: House Republicans are building their regain-the-majority strategy around the trifecta of rising inflation, illegal immigration and crime. The GOP blames all those troubling trends on Democrats, since they’re in charge. The fear factor has a receptive audience with the big prize in next year’s midterms — suburban swing voters.

Well, there is this little problem:

The big picture: Trump will probably run in 2024 and make the GOP about his various grievances. In that case, Republican candidates will try to smuggle these ideas to voters without offending the party leader.

“Without offending the party leader…” As if that’s just a perfectly normal thing now.

Well, good luck with that:

An Arizona congressman tweeted a photoshopped anime video of himself slaying liberal Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. Sen. Ted Cruz , a Texas Republican, has reportedly been spitballing about secession. Michigan Rep. Fred Upton shared a vile voicemail branding him a traitor and threatening his family after he was one of the handful of Republicans to vote for a bipartisan infrastructure bill to create jobs mending roads, bridges and airports.

And the ex-President himself has taken his incitement and obsessional lies about an election in which he tried to destroy US democracy to new levels of intensity. He has already notified the court that he is appealing the judge’s ruling Tuesday night that the current President’s decision not to assert privilege over the documents outweighs Trump’s position that they should not be handed over.

For all the signs of a newly focused GOP ready to exploit President Joe Biden’s struggles against inflation and high gas prices and to court parents dismayed over pandemic school closures, its unhinged wing is again stealing the spotlight.

The GOP is again coming across as a party that glorifies violence, denies truth, defies constitutional order, excuses insurrection, fuels conspiracy theories, appeases extremists and trashes democracy in its zeal to grab back power.

[…]

The bile heaped on 13 GOP members who backed a bipartisan infrastructure bill revealed another example of the zealotry pulsating through the conservative populist movement. Upton revealed on CNN a voice mail calling him a “f**king piece of sh*t traitor” after Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a leading light of the GOP’s stunt and conspiracy caucuses, tweeted the phone numbers of Republican colleagues who voted for the bill and called them traitors.

“The leader of the party” is leading the charge:

Former President Donald Trump ripped 13 congressional Republicans who backed a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill during a lengthy speech Monday – while one of them, New York Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, listened from the audience.

Malliotakis appeared visibly shaken as Trump railed against her and other Republican House members during the National Republican Congressional Committee dinner, a source told The Post.

How about this?

Trump just endorsed his opponent in the Idaho Governor’s race. pic.twitter.com/ewdp9CEBiF

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) November 10, 2021

His opponent is a MAGA nutcase.

So, good luck getting around this freakshow with your phony populism, Republicans.

COVID update from Andy Slavitt:

One too many smart people has told me or said on TV this week that the pandemic is over.

I offer this thread as a single, uniform response to everyone. 1/

It is still here.

There are still 1200 people dying every day. That’s a rate of 440,000 deaths/year.

40,000 from accidents
70,000 from opioids

I have a work colleague in the hospital right now who got COVID last week. It’s serious & we don’t know the outcome. 2/

I don’t know the amount of vaccinations we need to have it end here, but we’re not there.

Russia has 1/3 of the country vaccinated. And it’s not pretty.

Denmark has 70% and it’s not enough. 3/

• 

• 

Much of the US looks like Denmark and much of it looks like Russia in vaccination rates.

Proud of Sputnik but can’t get Russians to take it. Misinformation is a bitch, isn’t it Russia? 4/

We think we see the end of the pandemic frequently. It’s like ground hog day.

Ron Densantis comes comes out of his shell, declares vaccines harmful, struts like a peacock, and we have two more months tacked on to the pandemic. 5/

The signs people look at aren’t really signs.

To be clear, when cases dip it’s not over. When boosters come, it’s not over. When kids are vaccinated, it’s not over. When therapies are approved, it’s not over.

All are reasons I’ve heard in the last week. 6/

Let me put it more directly: just because you decide the pandemic is over for you doesn’t mean it’s over for everybody. 7/

Before Delta reared up and we were on the track to vaccinating more Americans, I too thought it might be over.

But then— Delta showed it could move faster than the vaccine at spreading. And vaccines waned. And people stopped getting shots. I was wrong. 8/

If we haven’t learned this yet— we can’t know anything about what we can’t see yet.

Every April someone in Minnesota would say “it’s done snowing.” And we would all be excited & plant flowers. And then it would snow & Lana would want to kill someone. 9/

So my real question is why. Why. Why the need to declare its over when people really don’t f-ing know. Why not just sit on your thumbs for a bit? 10/

The more productive conversation is one of tools— tools to reduce infections, tools to reduce deaths, tools to live life, to attend school, to be safe.

All THAT is increasingly possible with quick tests, masks, credentials, shots & new medicines. 11/

That news is good. But it has nothing to do with the relevant question of the pandemic: are these waves & the resulting hospitalizations & the high case counts over? 12/

California has seen a tripling of cases in the last few weeks. I visited a hospital today in LA at the eye of the storm last year with empty beds & few patients.

But the leaders told me they were at an all time low of nurses of cases come back. 13/

The country is now open to Europe. Probably the right decision but one that adds to the perception that the risk has disappeared, that are tools aren’t needed, that we won’t see another wave. 14/

Here’s an alternative idea: let’s all be prepared. Let’s use the tools we have. Let’s call it over after it ends. /end

Originally tweeted by Andy Slavitt 🇺🇸💉 (@ASlavitt) on November 10, 2021.

Ugh. I really want this thing to be over…

From a local Democratic newsletter this morning:

After four years of failed ‘infrastructure weeks’ under Trump, President Biden delivered on his promise to work across the aisle and shepherd through a historic investment in our nation’s infrastructure.  

President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal will rebuild our roads and bridges, expand broadband so every American has access to high-speed internet, and secure clean drinking water for our families and children. Because of Democrats, communities across the country will be healthier, better connected, and poised to help us continue leading on the world stage. 

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal is a once-in-a-generation investment that will create millions of jobs modernizing our infrastructure, turn the climate crisis into an opportunity, and put us on a path to win the economic competition for the 21st century. 

That path to lowering costs to consumers had best be as short as Americans’ memories:

(CNN)”Inflation” and “infrastructure” usually excite only professors and policy wonks, but everyday Americans need to bone up.

Infrastructure is the major accomplishment that could save President Joe Biden’s presidency.

Inflation is the force majeure that could doom it.

A government report out Wednesday suggested inflation was at its highest since the early 1990s.

But anyone filling up the tank in their gas guzzler can talk about inflation — gas prices are creeping toward $4 per gallon. The national average price of gasoline rose to $3.42 a gallon on Monday, up from $2.11 a year ago, according to AAA.

The soft-spoken Biden had best flog his accomplishments for all their worth, as Trump did (lying), or else the public won’t cut him a break in 2022 and 2024.

What’s more, it seems a few Republicans want to pull a little “Third Way” on Democrats. Bill Clinton stole Republicans’ thunder in the 1990s by adopting some of their positions. Can Republicans do the same without pissing off El Jefe?

“Republicans — reshaped, controlled and defined by Donald Trump since 2015 — are slowly but surely charting a post-Trump ideology and platform,” reports Axios:

Now, Republicans are rallying around a plan to break up with corporate America and oppose Big Business, Big Tech, Big Media, Big Education — and big government:

1. 1. Quit corporate America: A new breed of Republicans — led by Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who last week called on the party to divorce Big Business — is championing the working class against the party’s traditional boardroom allies. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) introduced a plan to “Bust Up Anti-Competitive Big Businesses.”
   2. Pound parental rights: Terry McAuliffe’s debate remark dissing parents allowed Virginia Republicans to mainstream an issue that was already burning up Fox News. The day after Glenn Youngkin’s victory, House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy said the party will soon unveil a “parent’s bill of rights.” Democrats are now playing defense on education — an issue they used to own.
   3. Terrorize tech: If Republicans win back the House and/or Senate majorities, curbs on Big Tech — including new taxes — will be a Day 1 priority. Cries of censorship — real or manufactured — are one of the surest GOP applause lines, milking the party’s cultural gulf with Silicon Valley. J.D. Vance, the “Hillbilly Elegy” author running for Senate in Ohio, is pushing to dismantle the “Big Tech Oligarchy.”

There’s more that is standard GOP fare. But after ignoring their own 2012 post-mortem, the party of business could be adjusting (slightly) to concerns beyond Trump’s grievances to chart a path forward. If so, “Republican candidates will try to smuggle these ideas to voters without offending the party leader.”

Nobody is fooled by what former president Donald Trump is doing with his legal challenges to document requests by the January 6th Select Committee. He is trying to run out the clock, to somehow delay the investigation into the insurrection until the November 2022 elections can, let’s be blunt, save his ass.

Endless legal delay, keeping adversaries tied up in court until they go away, is a habit of a lifetime for the man. It’s his go-to move. He is accustomed to being able to out-spend aggrieved creditors and women with claims against him. But not the U.S. government.

Having lost his claim of executive privilege last night in federal court, his attorneys immediately appealed (Washington Post):

A federal judge in Washington ruled late Tuesday that hundreds of pages of Trump White House records can be turned over to a congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol despite the former president’s objections.

The decision by U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan clears the way for the release of government records requested by Congress beginning Friday. Attorneys for former president Donald Trump immediately appealed and moved to bar release of the documents by the National Archives pending a ruling by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

The House panel and the Justice Department “contend that discovering and coming to terms with the causes underlying the January 6 attack is a matter of unsurpassed public importance because such information relates to our core democratic institutions and the public’s confidence in them,” Chutkan wrote in a 39-page opinion. “The court agrees.”

All eyes now on DOJ and A.G. Garland.

The court's opinion rejecting President Trump's effort to invoke 'executive privilege' is devastating.

It was not a close call

Full text: https://t.co/lqIqOCpLlc

Now it's time to indict Bannon for defying Congress's subpoena. https://t.co/z4oDK46bxj

— Ryan Goodman (@rgoodlaw) November 10, 2021

Only the sitting president can claim privilege, Chutkan wrote (Pg. 18), and Joe Biden has refused:

Plaintiff does not acknowledge the deference owed to the incumbent President’s judgment. His position that he may override the express will of the executive branch appears to be premised on the notion that his executive power “exists in perpetuity.” Hearing Tr. at 19:21-22. But Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President. He retains the right to assert that his records are privileged, but the incumbent President “is not constitutionally obliged to honor” that assertion.

As Ryan Goodman tweeted (above), the call was not even close.

Chutkan wrote, “Accordingly, the court holds that the public interest lies in permitting—not enjoining—the combined will of the legislative and executive branches to study the events that led to and occurred on January 6, and to consider legislation to prevent such events from ever occurring again.”

And if Trump cannot claim privilege, neither can former adviser Steve Bannon who stands eligible for prosecution for contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a subpoena from the committee.

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland has yet to bring Bannon’s case to a grand jury for indictment. The court’s ruling may be push he’s needed to move against Bannon.

Larry Tribe explained to Laurence (11/09/21) that with Judge Chutkan’s powerful ruling on Trump’s claim of Executive Privilege (a claim without merit) if AG Garland does not act on the prosecution of Bannon for contempt of Congress, then Garland himself is obstructing Congress!

— John W. Dean (@JohnWDean) November 10, 2021

Laurence Tribe, Professor Emeritus at Harvard University, believes Garland should have acted already in the House’s October 21 criminal contempt referral of Steve Bannon. Tribe gave an interview Tuesday night to MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell. With this clear ruling, Garland has no obstacle left standing. Either the rule of law applies, r the law is meaningless.

“Merrick Garland should go ahead and not get in the way of this absolutely vital congressional investigation,” Tribe said.

Despite Tribe’s reference to a rotund lady having sung, this isn’t over. Trump is in a corner, but not cornered. Privilege has its privileges. Washington protects its own. Recall that even after spending time in prison over the Iran-Contra affair, Oliver North emerged as a right-wing hero. Bannon could be drooling at the prospects of his cash flow at the end of a minimal prison term. Chutkan’s ruling may not have been a close call, but should evidence support it, whether any Department of Justice has the cojones to prosecute a former president is not.

James Fallows reminds us of his seminal media critique from the 1990’s called Breaking the News in his substack today and notes that, unfortunately, not much has changed:

But to my surprise, in looking back, one of the main points I made about the mainstream media of that lost-innocence era survives to this day. That point was the harm done by obsessive press emphasis on the how of politics—popularity, procedures, party feuds—as opposed to the what of government, and its role in people’s lives.

Here are the last few paragraphs on that page, with emphasis added:

The more prominent today’s star journalists become, the more they are forced to give up the essence of real journalism, which is the search for information of use to the public…

The harm actually goes much further than that, to threaten the long-term health of our political system. Step by step, mainstream journalism has fallen into the habit of portraying public life in America as a race to the bottom, in which one group of conniving, insincere politicians ceaselessly tries to outmaneuver another.

The great problem for American democracy in the 1990s is that people barely trust elected leaders or the entire legislative system to accomplish anything of value. The politicians seem untrustworthy while they’re running, and they disappoint even their supporters soon after they take office. By the time they leave office they’re making excuses for what they couldn’t do.

Deep forces in America’s political, social, and economic structures account for most of the frustration of today’s politics, but the media’s attitudes have played a surprisingly important and destructive role. Issues that affect the collective interests of Americans—crime, health care, education, economic growth—are presented mainly as arenas in which politicians can fight.

The press is often referred to as the Fourth Branch of Government, which means that it should provide the information we need so as to make sense of public problems. But far from making it easier to cope with public challenges, the media often make it harder. By choosing to present public life as a contest among scheming political leaders, all of whom the public should view with suspicion, the news media help bring about that very result.

That is: the operational details of politics—the personalities, the dramas, the sausage-making, the grandeur—are part of what (we) political reporters love about our work. We love knowing how the game is played, and recognizing the parts of it that are a game. We love being able to say, “What’s really going on is…” Or “We’re now seeing a big problem for the mid-terms.” Or “this reminds me of …” Or “this is all kabuki.”

The passion for the multiple layers of the game that can make sports-talk radio so interesting, and that keep pre- and post-game sports “analyst” panels in business, is part of what draws us to these contests.

But that’s because we are political enthusiasts. Most people, most of the time, mostly care about other things. For book-length versions of these two preceding sentences, I direct you to Breaking the News and Our Towns.

Subscribe now

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The ‘how’ of politics, versus the ‘what’ of governance

Last month I gave an illustration of this difference, based on the questions that audience members asked of Joe Biden at a Town Hall in Baltimore, versus the normal traffic at a White House briefing or press conference.

The people at that Town Hall session, like most other people in most meetings with most candidates and officials, asked mainly about the what of government—education, vaccines, jobs, and so on. The press mainly asks the how of Biden’s dealing with critics and supporters.

Here are new illustrations from the past few days:

—Around midnight in Washington this past Friday night, the House of Representatives finally passed the long-debated major infrastructure bill. It was a rare illustration of the “bipartisan accord” whose absence pundits have so often lamented. In the end 13 Republican members of the House voted for the bill, and six Democrats voted against it. (Back in August, 19 Republican members of the Senate had voted for it. Infrastructure projects go everywhere.)

But the real importance was of course the bill’s contents. The next morning the New York Times had a long, prominent front-page piece about what had just happened. It’s the story marked in red.

Remarkably, the headline on the story was not about the bipartisan vote the previous evening, or what the resulting legislation would do. Rather it was about what Democrats had not done—namely, agree among their caucuses and the Republicans on the separate “Build Back Better” bill, which was now “back on hold.”

A major Democratic-backed bill passed with bipartisan support, and the nation’s leading newspaper framed it as a scramble backward for “Democrats.”

The roughly 40 paragraphs of the story that followed, from the front page to a long inside jump, were strictly about the politics, deal-making, factional maneuvers, and polling implications of the bill. The story’s only glancing mention of its contents was as follows:

“Passage of the infrastructure legislation would be a much-needed and long-delayed victory for Mr. Biden—and a welcome break for Democrats, who could spend next week’s Veterans Day break traveling to their districts to show off the roads, bridges, tunnels, transit lines and airports due for a huge infusion of federal support.”

That is: roads, bridges, tunnels, and so forth were significant mainly as near-term talking points. This would be the appropriate framing if you were a pollster or a Congressional staffer. Less so for anyone else.

A few hours later, the Times’s revised online version of the story had added some mentions of the bill’s contents. Which means, interestingly: under the previous night’s intense deadline pressure to make the print edition, the aspect the paper chose to stress was the how of party politics. When it had time later on, it got around to the what.

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—The very next day, there was a similar illustration. The two national papers that showed up on our doorstep both led their Sunday morning front-page coverage with the infrastructure bill.

Here was the front page of the Washington Post:

“Across finish line,” in a banner across the front page. “$1.2 Trillion Bipartisan Achievement.” “After stinging setbacks, an enduring win to savor.” “Pillar of rebuilding agenda will be felt nationwide.”

The stories presented the vote as what it was, in the eyes of supporters and opponents alike: a significant moment in legislation and in national policy. The stories went into the politics of the vote but mainly talked about its potential effects. (In addition, the paper had an above-the-banner notice about the Post’s extraordinary “The Attack” report on the January 6 insurrection.)

The point about the Post’s presentation is not its framing of the episode as an “achievement” (rather than a setback) for Biden. It is that the stories, headlines, and presentation emphasized the what rather than just the how of the bill.

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—For comparison, here was the front page of the New York Times that we got at home yesterday morning:

The lead story about the bill was a one-column explainer on how it had “survived [a] brawl.” Next to it, with paired emphasis, was a top-of-page story: “In Rural Areas, Prospects Sink for Democrats.” That one featured interviews with rural and Southern white people, including a woman who said she had been at the Capitol on January 6, on why they were against the Democrats. (In addition, the front page had a feature from the powerful Times investigation on the way routine traffic stops have been abused by local police.)

This was front-page framing of the infrastructure vote as being significant for its how, rather than its what.

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Once you start noticing coverage in these two categories, you’ll be amazed at the abundance of how stories and TV commentary. Among the many reasons: if you’re an expert in politics, you can bring any development into your wheelhouse by talking about its implications for polling or the midterms. It’s what you’re interested in, and know about. If you only have a hammer …

This kind of coverage makes perfect sense on sports pages. We already know the what of who won the game. What we care about is the how—the approaches coaches, athletes, owners brought to the game. But, as I argued long ago, this approach presents public life as a version of sports—with less attractive contestants. Obviously there are dire other reasons for cynicism about public life. But this approach does not help.

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And as for the ‘why’ Fallows says he will tackle that in a future piece.

I fall into this trap myself, chattering about the “inside game” and speculating on strategy. It’s a lazy habit. And social media is even worse. It’s like the online version of the worst sports talk radio you’ve ever listened to.

We need the mainstream media to do something else. And far too often, when it comes to regular politics, they don’t.

Trump was a story that presented all the drama you could ask for and they did a good job of getting in and getting the story. In fact, it’s still unfolding. But regular political coverage requires a different approach and I’m sorry to say that I’m not seeing it.

You can subscribe here to Fallows’ newsletter. There a lot more than what I’ve excerpted here and it’s all worth reading.

I wish I understood why so many right wingers are such suckers but I honestly don’t. This is just pathetic. It would be one thing if they only endangered themselves with this stuff, but unfortunately, it endangers us all:

Whatever one’s views on the appropriateness of vaccine or mask mandates or other coronavirus-related policies, one fact about those debates is incontrovertible: Misinformation is very disproportionately a problem on one side — the right.2021 Election: Complete coverage and analysis

A new poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation lays that bare better than anything before it. But even the overall numbers might undersell the fundamental problems involved.

Kaiser runs great monthly tracking polls on the virus and related issues, and its most recent asked about false and unproven claims that have permeated the past year or so.

Of the eight statements the poll tested, just 6 percent of Republicans believed each of them to be untrue, compared with 38 percent of Democrats. And 46 percent of Republicans either believed or were unsure about at least half of the claims, compared with just 14 percent of Democrats.

Importantly, that’s not the same as saying 46 percent of Republicans actually believed four or more false claims; the pollster included those who are unsure about the claims in the above numbers.

But even those overall numbers obscure just how ripe the right is for this kind of misinformation. The reason: In most cases, if you exclude Republicans who haven’t heard the claims and focus on just who is familiar with them, a majority of them actually believe the claims.

Kaiser shared additional details of its findings with The Fix. Among them:

— 65 percent of Republicans say the government is exaggerating the death rate from the coronavirus, compared to just 4 percent of Republicans who have heard that claim and say it’s false. (In fact, the number of excess deaths compared with a normal year suggest the death rates are largely undersold.)

— 28 percent of Republicans believe ivermectin is a safe and effective treatment for the coronavirus, compared with 6 percent familiar with the claim who say it’s false. (Ivermectin remains unproven as a coronavirus treatment, with plenty of evidence that it’s not effective.)

— 28 percent also believe the government is hiding vaccine-related deaths, compared with 8 percent who say it’s false. (There is no proof for this claim, which is generally based on open-source and unverified reports to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS.)

— 18 percent say you can get the coronavirus from the vaccine, compared with 12 percent who say that’s false. (It is false.)

Indeed, of the eight claims tested, only two feature fewer Republicans who are familiar with the claim saying it was true than saying it was false. Those are: the idea that there are microchips in the vaccines and the idea that the vaccines change your DNA.

In the former case, just 7 percent of Republicans believe it’s true — the same percentage as among Democrats — compared with 40 percent who say it’s false. (About 21 percent of Republicans have heard the claim but are unsure about it.)

The idea that the vaccines change your DNA, which was recently stated by a speaker at one of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s news conferences (the Republican governor didn’t correct the speaker) is believed by 13 percent of Republicans and disbelieved by a similar number, 16 percent.

That more Republicans don’t believe these things seems to owe to the fact that many of them are simply unfamiliar with the claims in the first place — not necessarily that they have sought out reputable information.

That’s another contrast to Democrats. Their side also features many who are unfamiliar with each claim. But in all eight cases, the number who say the claim is false is at least three times as large as those believing the claim.

Republicans, of course, aren’t the only ones who believe false things about the coronavirus. In addition to the (albeit smaller) number of Democrats who believe any of these claims, polls have shown the left is more apt to significantly overstate the risk of the virus. Where the GOP differs is in its embrace not of faulty risk calculations, but of conspiracy theories with no basis — and often without many of them reaching the any conclusion.

The number of Republicans who believe any of the claims above doesn’t break 28 percent, apart from the idea that the coronavirus death toll is oversold. But when it comes to convincing a party whose base is significantly more reluctant to get vaccinated, the fact that those who have actually consumed such claims are more likely to believe them — and that so few disbelieve them — reinforces the true problem here.

These people simply aren’t getting accurate and nuanced information or don’t want to hear it. That has implications not just for getting vaccinated, but for the kind of real conversation we can have about other issues, as well.

I think “don’t want to hear it” is the best explanation. This stuff is so looney-tunes conspiratorial and, frankly, dumb that you have to assume that on some level these people are aware that this is ridiculous and are simply buying into the party line.

And what kind of party has a line like this?